


l Library of Congress.^! 




CHAP. X.l-\-^-l9.?-^ g - 



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UNUNITED STATES OF AMERICA.^! 



THE 



CENTAUH NOT FABULOUS. 



IN FIVE LETTERS JO A FRIEND. 
BY DR. YOUNG, **>*«- « 



ABRIDGED AND REVISED 



WITH EXPLANATORY NOTES, 
BY L. CARROLL JUDSON, 

AUTHOR OF THE EIOGRAPHY OF THE SIGNERS OF THE 
DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE, PROBE, &C. 



fi 



Pleasure is like the rainbow's form, 
It vanishes amid the storm. — Burn3. 

Sooner an aged stubborn oak may bend, 
And the firm flinty rock to pieces rend, 
Than he relent, whose tongue the incarnate God denies. 

Marsden. 



PHILADELPHIA : 
G. B. ZIEBER & CO 



1846. 




•?l 



s^> 



{?*• 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1846, by 

L. CARROLL JUDSON, 

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court in and for the 

Eastern District of Pennsylvania. 



r / 



STEREOTYPED BY J. C. D. CHRISTMAN & CO. 



T, K. & P. G. COLLINS, PRINTERS. 



PREFACE. 

In presenting this little volume to the public, in 
an abridged, revised, and modernised form, the wri- 
ter has aimed to convey, in a more brief and sim- 
ple form, the important truths of the original, which 
was published nearly one hundred years ago. It was 
personal, and contained many Latin, and a few Greek 
quotations, understood by none but the classical scho- 
lar. Although this abridgment retains but a small 
portion of the original text, the sentiments of Dr. 
Young have been carefully preserved, in language as 
plain, but less blunt. The appended notes will be 
found interesting. 

Its new dress and quaint style, may induce some to 
read it, who would reject the grave subjects discussed, 
if in a more ministerial garb. It is a chart of human 
nature, designed for all classes and sects — all who de- 
sire a knowledge of that cap-stone of the climax of 
paradoxes — that budget of contradictions— that crown- 
ing glory of creation — Man. 

Go, thou little messenger, heed not the critic, de- 
mean thyself with meekness and kindness towards 
all — and may thy well-aimed efforts be crowned with 
abundant success. 

Philadelphia, January 17, 1846. 

L. CARROLL JUDSON, 
of the Philadelphia Bar. 



CONTENTS 



LETTER I. 

PAGE. 

Pleasure .... 7 



LETTER H. 

Pleasure 32 

Altamontj death of ? 53 

LETTER III. 

Pleasure 67 

The Penitent 75 

LETTER IV. 

Review of Life 83 

Cause of Security in Sin 98 

Thoughts on Age 103 

LETTER V. 

Dignity of Man 113 

Centaur Restored 124 

Conclusion 133 

a2 5 



VI CONTENTS. 



EXPLANATORY NOTES. 

PAGE. 

Centaur 12 

Socinus 16 

bolingbroke 24 

VOLNEY , , 25 

Hume 25 

Bellerophon 29 

Juggernaut 32 

Elis 39 

Paphian 52 

Utopian , 61 

Gordian 67 

Phcenix 68 

Halcyon 70 

Augean Stable 93 

Hercules 93 

Hydra 94 

Thespian 96 

Alpheus 110 

Arethusa 110 

Eridamus 1 10 < 

Acheron 128 

Chiron 129 

Achilles 132 

Styx..' 132 

CiESAR 137 

Newton ♦ . ,-. 138 



THE CENTAUR NOT FABULOUS, 



LETTER I. 

PLEASURE. 

Dear Sir — Alarmed at the prevailing 
passion for Pleasure that is preying, 
like a Promethean vulture, upon the 
vitals of the dearest institutions of our 
beloved country, you press me to write 
upon this subject. The occasion calls 
louder upon me, and others who feel 
anxious to promote the happiness of 
immortal souls, to do so, than my friend 
can possibly call. Where is the phi- 
lanthropist, who can wield a pen, that 
can forbear? If the present canine ap- 

7 



8 THE CENTAUR 

petite for Pleasure should increase, in 
the same ratio it has for some years 
past, how large must that Bedlam be, 
to contain the ruined devotees, to whom 
humanity will extend her warm hand, 
when Pleasure kicks them out of her 
pestiferous palaces, after robbing them 
of their last penny? 

Your enjoining on me one task, in- 
volves another. Infidelity and Plea- 
sure, walk arm in arm — they recipro- 
cally generate each other. Eve doubted, 
and then ate. He that disbelieves a 
futurity, must build his superstructure of 
happiness on a terrestrial foundation, 
and eagerly swallow sensual delights, 
enjoy the demands of creature appetite, 
for to-morrow he dies and is lost in 
nonentity. Thus, Infidelity loosens 
the reins of Pleasure, and bids it range, 
unrestrained, through the labyrinthian 
mazes of fancied delights, prepared by 



NOT FABULOUS. 



the enemy of souls — the avenues to pre- 
sent misery and future torment. To 
affect one, we must strike at both. Eve 
and the serpent fell together. Pleasure, 
like her, plucks the forbidden fruit — In- 
fidelity, like him, says, Thou shalt not 
surely die. One seizes the body — the 
other the mind, and when these two 
meet, destruction is almost inevitable. 
To extract these fiery darts — these 
barbed and poisoned arrows, is the ulti- 
matum of my heart's desire. 

As the mind is our superior part, I 
shall first speak of Infidelity and then 
of Pleasure. I will aim to speak of 
both, so as to render it the province of 
Wit, not of Wisdom, to reply. What 
may silence Wisdom, will provoke Wit, 
whose ambition is, to say most .where 
least should be said. We can as soon 
silence Echo by increasing sound, as 
Wit by force of reason. They will both 



10 THE CENTAUR 

increase their noise and have the last 
word. We have men of brilliant talents 
and wit in our country, who boldly 
support folly, traduce wisdom, and hug 
Pleasure so closely, that Happiness is 
suffocated in the Centaur embrace. 
Happiness and Pleasure, as Wisdom 
and Wit, are friends or foes — if the lat- 
ter, they are of the bitterest kind. Ra- 
tional Pleasure is a child of Happiness 
— discreet Wit, a flower of Wisdom — 
but when these petty subalterns supplant 
their principals, one makes a miserable 
wretch,the other a gross fool, — the former 
calling for our compassion, the latter for 
our contempt. With the talents of an 
angel, a man may be void of that wis- 
dom which leads to true happiness. 
When great talents are employed in 
perverting truth, they generate errors of 
fearful magnitude in mind and practice. 
What more awful, than for Infidelity to 



NOT FABULOUS. 11 

gather strength as age advances, to 
smile on the terrors of a death-bed, and 
bequeath proud legacies of its poison to 
the rising generation? This is carrying 
the war into the very borders of the 
dread Being they dare oppose, despe- 
rately presuming to achieve a victory in 
their graves, when irrecoverably folded 
in the endless coils of the deathless 
worm, armed with the scorpion sting of 
the second death. 

Blind infatuation! The plea of igno- 
rance can no longer avail. The full 
blaze of Gospel truth and Divine reve- 
lation have shone upon them with meri- 
dian splendor. They are wilfully blind 
— obstinately perverse. Natural religion 
is their idol — God and revealed religion 
they affect to despise. Moral precepts 
they profess to respect — but seldom put 
them in practice. Reason is their golden 
calf, and in their blind devotions to it, 



12 THE CENTAUR 

they trample on the authority of the 
great Jehovah, and strike at an oak 
with an osier. The doctrine planted by 
God, the growth of ages — they endea- 
vor to annihilate with the fortuitous 
sprouts of imagination — the abortive 
shoots of an hour. 

Thus the sluices are opened wide for 
all sensuality and studied arts of excess 
to pour in, uncontrolled. Bacchus and 
Venus are presented with a new apo- 
theosis under this Christian era, and are 
deluged with daily sacrifices of fortune, 
health, reputation, happiness, and all that 
detracts from the dignity of man, origi- 
nally stamped on him by his Creator, and 
that transforms him into a Centaur.* 
The Infidel and voluptuary ask, 

# Centauri. A people of Thessaly, half men and 
half horse. The most generally received account is, 
that they were the offspring of Centaurus, son of 
Apollo, by Stilbia, daughter of the Peneus. According 



NOT FABULOUS. 13 

"Why desist from pleasurable enjoy- 
ments? Why starve at a feast Nature's 
God has set before us? To what end 
are desires and appetites implanted in 
us, if not to be satisfied? Anger and 
Lust, if constitutional, are venial sins." 
I answer, desires and appetites were 
given us with an intention doubly kind, 
as a means both of pleasure and virtue, 
if gratified and restrained as revealed 
religion directs; but the moment this 
highway to pure happiness is abandoned, 

to some, the Centaurs were the fruit of Ixiou's ad- 
venture with the cloud, in the shape of Juno. 

This fable' of the existence of Centaurs, arose from 
the ancient people of Thessaly having tamed horses, 
and appeared mounted upon them. Half horse, half 
alligator, and a sprinkling of snapping turtle, was un- 
known in those days. 

The most celebrated of the Centaurs were, Chiron, 
Eurytus, Amycus, Gryneus, Caumas, Lycidas, Arneus, 
Medon, Rhoetus, Pisenor, Mermeros, Pholas, &c. Most 
of them were extirpated by Herculus, — Walker 1 s Clas- 
sical Dictionary, 

B 



14 THE CENTAUR 

dangers accumulate around the bewil- 
dered traveller, as he pursues the broad 
road that leads to wretchedness and ruin. 
To what cause can we trace the sad 
effects upon the human mind, seducing 
the man from the allegiance he owes his 
Creator and Lord] To that fiend of de- 
struction — Unbelief. Want of faith in 
the immaculate Redeemer, and in the 
glorious plan of salvation, revealed to the 
fallen race of Adam, is the fatal rock on 
which the Infidel is riven. Although he 
may lead a moral life and avoid indulg- 
ing in the routine of sensual pleasure, 
still, he would be an angel of light with 
a cloven foot, the poison is there that 
opens w T ide the door to destruction — for 
the just live by faith in the Son of God, 
and no one will ever enter Heaven with- 
out it. When Unbelief controls the 
heart, it sends up the fumes of infatua- 
tion to the head, and produces a delirium 



NOT FABULOUS. 15 

of judgment, a perversion of the will, 
and, like Delilah, will blind the man of 
might. At first, it may, like a few grains 
of opium, only soothe the pains of the 
subject, inflicted by that faithful guard- 
ian, Conscience, by such soft whispers as 
these: " Heaven takes no cognizance 
of our actions, if not in the calendar of 
criminal offences, or is not so much con- 
cerned about them as some imagine. Its 
mercy will not suffer Justice to be so 
severe as to punish temporal guilt with 
eternal pain." This quieting anodyne 
prepares junior Infidels to take a full 
and conquering quantum of absolute 
Unbelief, while it drives them to the 
fatal and deluded conclusion, that a 
Deity is a dream and Religion a cheat. 
They then throw off their fears, deny 
their God, violate common sense, and 
are prepared to go the broad road with 
a rush, flaming into vice and darkening 



16 THE CENTAUR 

into error, until they reach the awful 
vortex of the Maelstrom of iniquity. 
" Who" say they, " can swallow the 
mysteries of your faith, drawn from that 
dark fountain, the Bible!" None, I ad- 
mit, but those who think it no dishonor 
to their understanding, to credit their 
Creator. Socinus* like our Infidels, was 
narrowed down by unbelief, denied the 
Trinity, and, out of generous feelings 
for truth, undertook to weed out all 
mysteries from the Scriptures, and ren- 
der them, in the plenitude of his infalli- 
ble reason, after a lapse of fifteen hun- 
dred years, undisgusting and palatable 

# Socinus Faustus, from whom the Socinians de- 
rive their name, was born at Sienna, in 1539, and was, 
for a considerable time in the service of the grand 
duke of Tuscany, after which he read Theology at 
Basil. The result of his studies, was the adoption of 
those anti-Trinitarian doctrines, which, for a time, did 
much to strengthen Infidelity, and draw many from 
the clear fountain of pure religion. He died in 1694. 
— Davenport r s Biog. Die. 



NOT FABULOUS. 17 

to all the rational part of mankind, such 
as preferred present enjoyment to future 
felicity. His plan made religion as fami- 
liar and inoffensive, as it was unscriptural 
and corrupt. We grasp many things 
with our hands, that our understandings 
cannot comprehend. Why then deny 
to Deity the privilege of being one of 
the multitude of mysteries he has made? 
The Trinity is one of the greatest 
rocks of offence in the way of unbelievers, 
because this revelation is the necessary 
foundation of Christianity, and a lucid 
demonstration of its truth. Because it is 
a mystery, which could not possibly have 
entered into the imagination of man, 
they endeavor to explode and reject it, 
forgetting that their inability to compre- 
hend it is a strong argument in its fa- 
vor, and heightens our attachment to 
this important article of our faith, sup- 

b 2 



18 THE CENTAUR 

porting us in it, for the very cause that 
leads them to condemn it. 

Those great and hidden mysteries in 
the Christian Religion, the truth of which 
we are assured of by Divine authority, 
but which are beyond the compass of 
our finite understandings fully to compre- 
hend, give vigor and strength to our faith. 
The plurality of the Divine Unity — 
God manifest in the flesh — the operation 
of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of be- 
lievers — the Resurrection of the dead — 
are clearly taught in the Scriptures — and 
to disbelieve these mysteries, is to deny 
the Divine origin of the word of God. 
Faith in these is more acceptable to 
God than a belief in things less abstruse, 
because it pays that honor which is due 
to his testimony, and more fully adores 
the incomprehensible majesty of our 
Creator, and leads us to contemplate 
our own impotence and our dependance 



NOT FABULOUS. 19 

upon him, and should inflame our grati- 
tude for the countless mercies we re- 
ceive from our great Benefactor. 

Some of the infidels in our country 
are men of science. Suppose one of 
high attainments should deliver a lecture 
on the abstruse parts of chemistry, aided 
by the necessary apparatus for exhibiting 
experiments, and many among his audi- 
ence could not understand and compre- 
hend the cause, or combination of causes, 
that produced the results that were self 
evident, and should therefore deny the 
truth of the propositions of the learned 
lecturer; would he consider himself 
treated with due respect? Certainly 
not. Let him apply this touchstone to 
the plain results flowing from the great 
first cause, and then practice the golden 
rule, and no more cavil with the myste- 
ries of religion, because he is wilfully a 
stranger to the faith once delivered to 



20 THE CENTAUR 

the saints. But he may reply — " Give 
me time, and I will make every thing so 
plain, that all will fully understand. In 
his own good time, God will do the 
same for every Christian. 

An error has sometimes been commit- 
ted by Christians, more zealous than^?r^- 
dent, by vainly attempting to explain the 
mysteries of revelation, forgetting that a 
mystery explained is a mystery destroyed 
— for what we can fully comprehend, is 
no longer a mystery. It is with our 
understandings as with our eyes — both 
have mysteries — both have objects be- 
yond their reach — some accidentally — 
some absolutely so. Too much dark- 
ness or too much light, may intercept 
the powers of vision, and prevent us 
from seeing objects that we know exist. 
We may gaze upon the towering moun- 
tain, but cannot discover the composi- 
tion of its interior. We may traverse 



NOT FABULOUS. 21 

the dark cavern without a light, and 
emerge in safety, but can give no ac- 
count of its beauties or deformities. — 
We may listen to the wind, witness its 
fearful effects, and tremble beneath its 
fury, " but cannot tell whence it cometh 
or whither it goeth — so is every man 
that is born of the spirit" — so are the 
mysteries of the religion of the cross. 
What man can comprehend the arcana 
of nature, with her multiform produc- 
tions, above, around, and beneath him \ 
all declaring, in eloquence sublime- 
there is a God. These all admit — why 
reject the others ] 

Instead of embracing the truth of 
Christianity, the poor deluded Infidel 
wanders through the labyrinthian mazes 
of blind conjecture — manufactures fancy 
propositions, and christens them realities. 

The objections of Infidels to Chris- 
tianity, not only arise from Unbelief, but 



22 THE CENTAUR 

Dislike ; because its moral precepts put a 
curb on the sensual appetites and wilder 
passions of human nature, imparted to 
fallen man by the poisonous juices of 
the forbidden fruit. They would rather 
transfer than remove the mysteries — from 
the Doctrines to the moral Precepts. 
But even this would not relieve them 
from their awful dilemma. No one ever 
complied with the moral Precepts, who 
did not become reconciled to the Mys- 
teries of the Gospel. The despotic 
heart commands the passive head to 
fight its unjust quarrel. 

God grant that these few hints may 
lead Infidels to examine, more particu- 
larly, the evidences of Christianity, for it 
appears plain to me, that no reasonable 
man can reject Revelation, and that he 
who continues an Infidel in a land en- 
lightened by the Gospel — must be want- 
ing in sound common sense — must be 



NOT FABULOUS. 23 

either criminal or dull. If I wrong 
them, I wrong them much ; for an Infi- 
del tongue, a Christian conscience, and 
a Pagan heart, are the ingredients that 
enter into the composition of all genuine 
Infidels, if any such are among us. 

But it is a natural question, why do 
some men of parts dislike the Scriptures, 
when, to others, they appear more and 
more admirable, in proportion to the 
increased discernment of the reader? 
Can it be from Ignorance? It may be so 
if their hearts are worse than their heads, 
for there are parts of Holy Writ, which 
none but a good man can understand. 
" Rejoice always — and again I say re- 
joice." This must appear, to a common 
impenitent, much more to an Infidel, 
absurd, because to them impracticable 
and therefore uninspired. To rejoice in 
tribulation, they have no disposition or 
power. On the contrary, he who lives 



24 THE CENTAUR 

by faith on the Son of God, has the key 
to the Scriptures. " The secret of the 
Lord is with them that fear him." This 
text is as dark to the vicious man as the 
other, because, having had no Christian 
experience, he cannot comprehend its 
force. The good man comprehends it by 
sweet experience. Thus, the Bible, like 
the cloud of pillar, is light to the true 
Israelites but darkness to the Egyptians. 
Can Vanity lead to Infidelity? It 
may, where a man of dazzling talents 
falls into the company of a Bolingbroke,* 

# Bolingbroke, Henry St. John, Lord Viscount of 
England, was born at Battersea, in 1672. At Eaton 
and Oxford, he received a highly finished education- 
became member of Parliament in 1700 — Secretary of 
War and Marine in 1704; in 1710 became a part of 
the ministry; in 1712 was created Viscount; on the 
accession of George I. was impeached and fled to 
France, and became Secretary of the Pretender. In 
1723 he was pardoned, his estates restored — but not 
being allowed a seat in Parliament, he became indig- 
nant — wrote against Sir R. Walpole, and in 1735 again 



NOT FABULOUS. 25 

a Volney,* or a Hume,f and is flattered 
by them, with the enchanting hope of 
shining in the lettered world, wielding a 
pen, more fatal to its master than Cato's 

retired to France, and on the death of his father again 
returned to Battersea, where he died of a cancer on 
his face in 1751. — Dav. Bio. Die. 

He was an Infidel, and the most powerful and fas- 
cinating writer of his day. He was also an orator of 
the highest order, and led many into the broad road 
to ruin. 

*VoLNEY, CONSTANTINE FRANCIS ChASSEBCEUF, 

Count, &c. an eminent French writer, born at Craon, 
in Brittany, in 1757. He was educated at Angers 
and studied medicine in Paris. He was a member of 
the States General — was imprisoned ten months du- 
ring the reign of terror — was appointed Professor of 
History at the Normal school in 1794 — was created a 
senator and count by Napoleon — visited the United 
States in 1795 — returned to France in 1798, and died 
April 25, 1820. He was a man of talent, an Infidel, 
and advocated a republican form of government. — 
Dav. Biog. Die. 

His " Ruins," is a book written with great tact, and 
well calculated to lead weak minds into the awful 
vortex of infidelity. — Author. 

t Hume, David, was born at Edinburgh, Scotland, 

C 



26 THE CENTAUR 

sword. Can Envy apologize for them? 
How can these men envy Christians, if 
they are right and we are wrong? Man 
is ambitious of happiness, and the good 
man desires all to be happy. Infidels 
know, that if religion is true, Chris- 
tians are happier than themselves — they 
therefore wish it to be false and spend 
their noblest powers to prove it so 
and perish on their own sword, drawn 
against the truth. If they envy the 
Christian at any time, it is on their dy- 

in 1711. After toiling for some time at the mercantile 
business, he went to France and gave his whole at- 
tention to literary pursuits. In 1737, he returned to 
London and published his treatise on Human Nature — 
in 1742 and 1752, he published his Political Discourses, 
and Inquiry concerning the Principles of Morals. In 
1754, he published the first volume of his History of 
England, which was completed in 1761. On his in- 
fidel writings, it is unnecessary to enlarge. His His- 
tory of England is written in a finished style, but is 
unfaithful, and inculcates principles, which are ab- 
horrent to every friend of freedom. — Dav. Biog. Die. 



NOT FABULOUS. 27 

ing bed, more than before. The greater 
the talents and education of an Infidel, 
the more poisonous is his pestilential in- 
fluence. Thousands may follow in his 
wake to destruction. Example is more 
powerful, more subduing than precept, 
when it caters for the gratification of 
sensual appetites and passions, or en- 
forces the realities of the religion of the 
Cross. Did Christians but live the reli- 
gion of our Saviour, as he has set the 
example, infidel writers w T ould be shorn 
of one of their arguments against it, an 
argument that furnishes them with am- 
munition to protract the war, which, 
although it will not weaken us, may 
greatly injure them and their deluded 
followers; an evil we should do all in 
our power to avert, by living in such a 
manner as to adorn our profession, and, 
by the force of Christian example, woo 
them back to truth to reason, and to duty. 



28 THE CENTAUR 

Christianity, like gold often burnished, 
grows brighter under the attacks of its 
opponents, who, instead of darkening its 
lustre, sometimes throw new light upon 
the sublime excellence of its nature and 
truth, doing it signal service without 
running it in debt, and, without any de- 
mand upon the gratitude of its advocates. 
The stronger its adversaries the more 
brilliant its triumphs — the more it is op- 
posed and disputed, the more indis- 
putably will it shine. It is the great 
arch on which we may rest securely — 
supporting mans present and eternal 
welfare and the glory of God, and will 
grow stronger as its enemies pile on it 
an additional weight of reproach and 
opposition. 

It is possible that Infidels, whilst in- 
tending only to write their opinions, 
may do more — delineate a set of morals 
that must produce a bad life, and like 



NOT FABULOUS. 29 

Bellerophon,* may be the bearer of 
their own condemnation, when they 
imagine they are shedding light on 

* Bellerophon, son of Glaucus, king of Ephyre, 
by Eurymede, was at first called Hipponous. The 
murder of his brother Alcimenus, or Beller, procured 
him the name of Bellerophon, or murderer of Beller. 
After this murder, he fled to the court of Prcetus, king 
of Argos. Being a handsome man, Stenobcea, the 
wife of the king, fell in love with him, and, as he 
slighted her passion, she accused him falsely, before 
her husband, of attempting to seduce her. The king, 
unwilling to violate the laws of hospitality by punish- 
ing him, sent him to the father of the queen, Jobates, 
king of Lycia, and gave him a letter, in which he 
begged Jobates to punish him with death for insulting 
his daughter. This king, to satisfy his son-in-law, 
sent Bellerophon to conquer a horrible monster, called 
Chimaera. But Minerva supported him, and, with the 
winged horse, Pegasus, he conquered the monster, 
and returned victorious. He also subdued the Solymi 
and the Amazons, and a number of assassins, sent by 
Jobates to destroy his life, convincing the king, that 
innocence is always protected by the gods. Upon 
this Jobates gave him his daughter in marriage, and 
made him his successor to the throne of Lycia. — 
Walker's Classical Dictionary. 

c2 



30 THE CENTAUR 

mankind. But condemnation from 
others, will be much more supportable 
than their own, should truth and con- 
science enforce that upon them. May 
their minds be illuminated by spiritual 
light, before their souls make the awful, 
the irrecoverable plunge into the gulf of 
death, when their fearful fate will be 
sealed and unalterably fixed — the door 
of mercy and happiness forever closed, 
and the scorpion lashes of agonizing 
remorse, will forever poison their souls 
with keen regret, bitter anguish, and re- 
lentless despair. 

You may think some of my remarks 
too severe. Truth is often thought se- 
vere. No man can strike fire with a 
feather. A fire elemental is diffused 
through all nature, although locked up 
in dark matter, and not apparent until 
brought out by friction. May there not 
be a spark of heavenly fire in man \ If 



NOT FABULOUS. 31 

so, it requires a blow of some force to 
strike it out of a heart of flint. Such 
blows are necessary in these days of In- 
fidelity ; for Infidelity and Religion are 
the night and day of the moral world. 
The one reveals—the other hides hea- 
ven from our minds. Happy will I be, 
if what I have written shall shed a ray 
of light on but one single darkened 
mind, groping under the grand eclipse 
of Infidelity. May we all enjoy the light 
of revealed Religion, until heaven, in an- 
swer to the voice of faith, shall admit 
us into its meridian light, where undis- 
puted truth and unmistaken pleasure will 
reign triumphant, through the ceaseless 
ages of eternity. 



32 THE CENTAUR 



LETTER II. 

PLEASURE. 

I now proceed to write more particu- 
larly of Pleasure. It may be long be- 
fore men, whose faults set the public eye 
at defiance, will blush, when alone. — 
Until their consciences are alarmed, 
their common sense renovated, and their 
reason restored, the hope of reformation 
is faint. Although their road, like that 
leading to Juggernaut,* is strewed with 

# The Temple of Juggernaut, is esteemed the most 
sacred of all the religious establishments of the Hin- 
doos, and was formerly visited by over a million of 
human beings annually. The object of worship is an 
idol, formed of a carved block of wood, with a fright- 
ful visage, painted black, and a distended mouth of a 
bloody colour. Its arms are gold — it is dressed in 
gorgeous apparel. On festival days, the throne of this 
idol is placed on a stupendous movable tower, about 



NOT FABULOUS. 33 

bones and carcasses of human beings in 
every aspect, it does not retard the pro- 
sixty feet high, resting on wheels, which indent the 
ground deeply as they turn slowly under this pon- 
derous weight. It is drawn by the people, by means 
of six ropes or cables. Upon the tower are the priests, 
whose addresses, songs and gestures, are of the most 
indecent character. As the car moves, many of the 
worshippers throw themselves before the wheels, and 
are crushed to death. Many of the pilgrims to this 
temple, die by the way. At the distance of fifty 
miles, the approach to this spot is known by the quan- 
tity of human bones, which are strewed by the way. 
Many old people take the journey, on purpose to die 
within the precincts of this temple. There is a spot, 
a short distance from it, called, by the Europeans, 
Golgotha, where the dead bodies are cast forth, and 
are devoured by dogs, vultures and jackals. The 
pilgrims pay a tax, which, after defraying the ex- 
penses of the temple, goes to the government. The 
receipts have amounted to $60,000 in a single year. 

This temple is located at Orissa, in Hindostan, on 
the bay of Bengal, 48 miles S. by W. from Calcutta. 
Lat. 19.49 N., Lon. 85.54 E. Since Mr. Ward wrote 
the above account, the labours of Christian mission- 
aries, by the blessing of God, have done much to dis- 
pel the darkness that then enveloped that shadow of 
death. 



34 THE CENTAUR 

gress, or diminish the numbers of the in- 
fatuated devotees of Pleasure. This 
charnel highway was thronged by the 
antediluvians, until they were over- 
whelmed by destruction. But the dread- 
ful calamity that befel them, soon ceased 
to be a warning to men, as they multi- 
plied on the earth. To the man of 
Pleasure, the Bible is a sealed book, and 
visible warnings pass by him like the 
idle wind. 

It may be a matter of dispute, whether 
wicked great men are more hardened in 
Infidelity than they are polluted and 
enervated by Pleasure, which, when it 
gains a triumph over the heart, becomes 
the fruitful source of every crime. Al- 
though the child of Infidelity, it often 
becomes stronger than its sire, and for- 
gets its paternity. Theft, murder, per- 
jury, are some of its bitter fruits, but not 
the worst. I shall not attempt to give 



NOT FABULOUS. 35 

an analysis of the whole, but enough to 
render the name of a Man of Pleasure, 
which some assume as the insignia of 
Honor — not only ridiculous, but detest- 
able. 

What an iron sceptre does Pleasure 
sway over our republican land ! It is 
not only the pestilence that walks in 
darkness, but the fiend that destroys at 
noonday. The moon grows pale at 
its midnight enormities — the morning 
blushes at its unfinished debauch. Na- 
ture trembles and faints under its pon- 
derous weight. The public officer, the 
private citizen, the rich and the poor, 
the high and the low, all classes, not 
shielded by the helmet of faith in the 
Son of God, are more or less affected by 
its poisonous miasma. So bold, adroit, 
enchanting, and artful, are its attacks, 
that it sometimes carries away captive, 
and, for a time, enslaves those who are 



36 THE CENTAUR 

the children of the living God. The 
great, who become patrons of Pleasure, 
lead the way, and, like the anti-Curtii, 
leap into the gulf for the destruction of 
others — perhaps of their country, for 
most governments have first become ef- 
feminate, and then expired on the bed of 
luxury. 

Pleasure is the fruitful parent of vice. 
The latter has something horrible, that 
naturally alarms conscience, when awake 
on its tower. Pleasure, under the false 
banner of innocent amusement, acts like 
an opiate — first stupifies — then effectu- 
ally paralyzes — conscience falls asleep 
— vice loses its horror — increases in 
power, and converts its victims into 
willing and faithful subjects — Infidels in 
mind, and Centaurs in practice. 

Birth, education, and abundance, if 
abused by devoting them to sensual plea- 
sure, are more deplorable than obscurity, 



NOT FABULOUS. 37 

ignorance and poverty. Men of rank, 
education, and fortune, when wrong, are 
deeply so. How pestilential their ex- 
ample on the lower grades of society, 
who, under the welcome force of such 
illustrious authority, become dissolute, 
and enter the arena of ruin. Great men, 
who lead immoral lives, are powerful 
engines of mischief, and, like bursting 
bombs, destroy themselves and those 
around them. They pervert the two 
supreme glories of man — reason and im- 
mortality. The former seems to render 
them more guilty — the latter renders 
endless the sad images of their guilt. It 
is this cloud, hanging, like an incubus, 
over their understandings, that adulte- 
rates the happiness they seek, forgetting 
that all real enjoyment lies within the 
compass of the commands of God. Dip 
too deeply in pleasure, you will stir up 
a sediment that renders it impure and 

D 



38 THE CENTAUR 

noxious. It can only be obtained by 
properly cultivating the boundless pow- 
ers of the immortal soul, stripping off its 
earthly rubbish, until it shall appear in 
all the sublime beauty originally stamped 
upon it by Deity, and be prepared to 
enter into joys as infinite as its capacity, 
which nothing earthly can ever satisfy. 
Men of Pleasure seem to forget, that 
virtue is the grand panacea of the soul 
— that luxury is the hot-bed of disease 
and pain — that assemblies, balls, mas- 
querades, gambling and drinking houses 
— in short, all deviations from the path 
of rectitude, are the sure avenues to 
moral and physical diseases, that pro- 
duce the ruin of reputation, fortune, and 
health, and expose the soul to all the 
enduring agonies of the second death. 
The devotees of Pleasure may feel a 
momentary joy when they first enter her 
glittering palaces, that fascinate only to 



NOT FABULOUS. 39 

destroy. But soon they find an aching 
void in their souls. They change the 
scene, but still pursue an ignis fatuus, a 
vapour created from impurities, leading 
its bewildered followers into quagmires 
and swamps, deep and dark. No joys 
are real and flourish long, but such as 
are approved of Heaven and win the 
favor of God. Men of Pleasure vainly 
strive to cultivate joys of their own crea- 
tion, the seeds of which Heaven never 
sowed in their hearts. They might as 
well invade another prerogative of the 
great Jehovah, and, with the tyrant of 
Elis* pretend to manufacture thunder 
and lightning. A false, momentary joy 
may exist without reflection, and a con- 

# Elis, a country of Peloponnesus, at the west of 
Arcadia, and north of Messenia, and is watered by the 
river Alpheus. It was originally governed by Kings, 
and received its name from Eleus, one of its monarchs. 
It was famous for its swift horses, used so successful 
at the Olympic games. — Walk. Clas. Die. 



40 THE CENTAUR 

sumptive cheerfulness arise from it — but 
the joys emanating from the Religion 
of the cross, can alone make a truly 
happy man. 

Men of Pleasure are the veriest slaves 
on earth. They run, labour, expend, 
expose themselves to perils — injure their 
families — offer up the rich sacrifice of 
conscience and common sense — watch 
late, all but pray — until jaded out by 
protracted amusements. Like the bear 
in the fable, they hug their darling to 
death. Instead of rejoicing, they sorrow 
in fancied and sought-for delight, and 
tread the eternal round of vanities, less 
for the pleasure it brings than for the 
pain it suspends. They dread being 
alone, for their reflection stings them 
like an adder — when together, they sup- 
port each other's spirits. Like sailors, 
they cling to each other when their ves- 
sel is sinking, instead of flying to their 



NOT FABULOUS. 41 

Maker, who alone can fill up the awful 
vacuum, and heal all the diseases of 
their aching hearts. 

The numberless pains of body and 
mind — the dark, solemn approaches to, 
or dismal vestibules of the grave, as well 
as opening graves, are so thickly scat- 
tered over the face of our republican 
land by this fell monster, with the coun- 
terfeit name of Pleasure — that an un- 
petrified heart cannot look around with- 
out feeling chilled and disconsolate, and 
sighing and weeping over the desolation 
of immortal souls. Were the one hun- 
dredth part of the wretchedness seen, 
that is felt, by the devotees of Pleasure, 
it would strike us with dismay and 
horror. 

It would seem that Heaven intended 
one portion of our species as a moral lec- 
ture for the other. It surrounds us with 
deplorable objects — not more for the 

d 2 



42 THE CENTAUR 

sake of the wretched than for our own, 
that our compassion may be awakened 
for them, and they serve as beacon lights 
to enable us to avoid the fatal rock on 
which their frail bark has been shattered, 
perhaps recklessly driven from the pin- 
nacle of fame, the acme of letters, or the 
splendors of fortune, into the whirlpool 
of insipid delights, where ignorant mul- 
titudes follow, and indigent multitudes 
shiver and starve. Pleasure, by darken- 
ing their understandings, robs them of 
this world — and by stupifying their con- 
sciences, cheats them out of the joys of 
the next. Less wise in theory than 
Epicurus, who proposed making a world 
out of dancing atoms, they, out of the 
giddy whirl of multiform amusements, 
made up of minute particles of Pleasure, 
too small to be discerned by the eye of 
reason, undertake to form happiness, a 
system equally philosophical and sue- 



NOT FABULOUS. 43 

cessful. A God only could make the 
one — none but the Christian can expe- 
rience the other. 

The "one thing needful" for true hap- 
piness, is common to both worlds. The 
boasted felicities of Pleasure, are demon- 
strations of misery in this life, and the 
embryo of those in the nether world. 
So strong is the witchcraft of Pleasure, 
that it turns young men into old by their 
infirmities, and old into young by their 
affectation and conceit. 

Let us look a little more minutely into 
the heterogeneous composition of the 
Man of Pleasure, and endeavor to make 
an analysis of this marvellous Centaur. 
Of what nature, species, and rank in 
creation is he \ Does this yet uncon- 
strued, undeciphered creature, claim to 
be immortal ? or only a rational being \ 
or a mere animal? If an immortal be- 
ing, why does he not regard things eter- 



44 THE CENTAUR 

nail If a rational being, why does he 
dethrone reason 1 If a mere animal, why 
does he glut, instead of satisfying appe- 
tite \ When the natural hunger of an 
animal is allayed, his meal is ended. If 
it is a composition of all three, it need 
not be a confusion of them — order will 
preserve an equilibrium. By violating 
order, he is an immortal, dead to all 
sense of immortality — a rational, void 
of reason — an animal, transgressing ap- 
petite — a disordered combination — a 
wretched chaos of all, without the bene- 
fit of either — nay, more — a sufferer from 
each, because an abuser of all. They 
are not, as Heaven designed them, three 
parties in alliance for his happiness — he 
has bribed them to become conspirators, 
throw off their allegiance to their right- 
ful sovereign, and himself becomes the 
first victim of these traitors, and then 
they destroy each other — for, in this 



NOT FABULOUS. 45 

immortal maze of ruin, appetite, reason, 
and immortality violate, and are violated 
by each other. Perverted reason leads 
appetite beyond her bounds — unbounded 
appetite first stupifies — then dethrones 
reason — immortality then becomes re- 
gardless of things eternal — they being 
disregarded, the boundless desires and 
powers of the latter are spent in things 
temporal, and impel deposed reason and 
riotous appetite to a fatal extravagance, 
which otherwise would have remained 
dormant, beyond their power or desire. 
Thus we have the solution of this unique 
problem. The man, in his folly, de- 
bauches the brute — the brute debauched, 
dethrones the man — the dethroned man 
and debauched brute join in rebellion 
against the immortal — the subdued im- 
mortal resigns to them its infinite pow- 
ers and desires, which, being diseased, 
ultimately poison and destroy all three. 



46 THE CENTAUR 

The man, if not in alliance with an 
immortal, never would have had an 
unbounded desire and power. If not 
in alliance with a brute, he never 
would have debased them to mean 
and sordid ends, or confined them to 
things temporal — but being joined to 
both, and through perversenes and stu- 
pidity, rendering celestial immortality 
inglorious, and terrestrial brutality more 
brutal, a far more miserable being is 
formed by compound, than either could 
be separate and alone. We may there- 
fore congratulate the mere brute, because 
it is beyond his power to become such a 
monster by compound, as we have be- 
fore us. If the Man of Pleasure will take 
one deliberate look at this Centaur, 
either by using his own mirror, or that 
of a colleague, if he is modest, he will 
for the future give the wall to his horse. 
Like Codrus, he disguises his dignity to 



NOT FABULOUS. 47 

rush into danger, and, happy for him, if 
he meets nothing but temporal death. 
Reason and immortality, the man and 
the immortal, occasion the calamity, and 
the poor animal, an innocent ally, un- 
justly suffers with them, until the wel- 
come messenger, Death comes to the 
final rescue. Some may look upon this 
analysis as mere sophistry. I will, 
therefore, for the benefit, if not edifica- 
tion of such, present one more plain and 
short. The Man of Pleasure is one, 
who, desirous of being more happy than 
man can be, is less happy than other 
men are — one who seeks happiness 
every where except where it may be 
readily found — one who out-toils the 
laborer without receiving wages, paying 
a dear price for a license to engage in 
the labor he performs. He is an immor- 
tal being that has but two marks of a 
man about him — upright stature and the 



48 THE CENTAUR 

power of playing the fool, which the 
monkey has not. If he is an Infidel, he 
may triumph in this single, deplorable, 
jet false hope, that he shall be as happy 
as a monkey when they are both dead — 
feeling that he cannot be while he lives. 

He is an immortal being, that would 
lose none of its most darling delights 
if he were a mere brute — but would 
lose them all, if he could be in Heaven. 
He desires not to be there — however he 
may hope for it when death closes the 
door of his mortal, debauched, more than 
brutal career. Without hope and with- 
out God, what is the Man of Pleasure? 
To-day, what I have described him — 
to-morrow, perhaps a man of distraction, 
remorse, anguish, and despair. 

To acquire and enjoy real pleasure, 
we must preserve order in our compound 
nature, and not derange the equilibrium 
so happily adjusted by our Creator. To 



NOT FABULOUS. 49 

do this, we must enjoy the guidance and 
consolation of the Holy Spirit What 
are the joys of the world compared with 
them? the joys of victory over strong 
temptations — a sweet repose in Divine 
favor, and an indefeasible right to eternal 
life. Is there not a sublime grandeur 
and solidity of happiness in the thought, 
that we are heirs of enduring bliss? Is 
not this more consoling, than to range 
through the avenues of fancied pleasure? 
— to join in the giddy dance, the per- 
nicious masquerade, the ruinous gaming 
house, the contaminating brothel, the 
damning ale-house, and all the other 
fluttering, gilded, noxious, fleeting de- 
lights of the Man of Pleasure ? a son of 
Beelzebub, the god of flies. Most men 
of Pleasure have their Eve — every Eve 
has a serpent, and that serpent has a 
sting. He who will spend his substance, 
and degrade his immortal in this life, 

E 



50 THE CENTAUR 

must reap the wages of sin in the next. 
He who lives in the kingdom of sensu- 
ality, must die in the kingdom of sorrow. 
He who will not fear, shall feel the wrath 
of Heaven. He who cannot compla- 
cently think of his last hour, cannot 
rightly enjoy the present. He who 
makes the day of his death the birth- 
day of his understanding, treasures up 
wrath for the day of wrath. 

If diseases make ravages among us, 
and death often warns us of his rapid 
approach — if, when death arrives, all 
mankind close their career on earth, 
with one opinion and one wish — if un- 
hallowed enjoyments hasten the ap- 
proach, heighten the dread, and add to 
the anguish of the last hour of mortality 
— if death is the single certain event, 
and virtue the single safe pursuit, and 
the Divine favor the single point of ab- 
solute importance — if that favor is freely 



NOT FABULOUS. 51 

offered to us "without money and with- 
out price," — if the fate to be shared is 
endless, and this life but as a moment to 
an age, and an age not a moment to 
eternity, and if faith in the immaculate 
Redeemer is necessary to gain a pass- 
port to the realms of enduring happiness, 
how awfully terrific, how imposingly so- 
lemn, and how deeply horrible must be 
the death scene of a Man of Pleasure, 
as he approaches the confines of the 
eternal world, and the truths of revela- 
tion burst upon his mind from the throne 
of a neglected, an offended, an angry, and 
an avenging God. Oh ! what a change, 
when the convulsed body writhes under 
the agony of an unwilling soul, about to 
leave it for a more dreadful habitation. 
The death bed of a profligate is next in 
horror to that dark abyss to which it 
leads. It has the most of hell, that is 
visible on earth. And he who has wit- 



52 THE CENTAUR 

nessed it, has more than faith, to con- 
firm him in the realities of revealed reli- 
gion. The two great enemies of the 
body and soul — disease and sin, join to 
storm the citadel. Disease excludes the 
light of Heaven — sin, its cheering hope. 
Oh! double darkness! Oh! wretched 
mortal ! 

How unlike those illuminated scenes 
of hilarity, of which he may have been 
the attracting centre — the dazzling lead- 
er — the dictator in the cabinet of Plea- 
sure — pronouncing the fashions and 
teaching the gayest to be more gay. 
Are these torturing pangs that seize and 
convulse his frame, the trophies of his 
Paphian* conquests! These the tri- 



* Paphian, from Paphia, a surname of Venus, the 
goddess of beauty, because this goddess was wor- 
ship at Paphos, a famous city in the island of Cyprus. 
Here her altars, one hundred in number, daily smoked 
with Arabian frankincense. It was here that Paul 



NOT FABULOUS. 53 

umphs preferred to Heaven? Is this he 
whose pre-eminence in vanity, often ex- 
posed him to the shafts of jealousy and 
envy? Oh! see how he lies, like an out- 
cast, on the narrow isthmus between time 
and eternity, lashed and overwhelmed on 
the one side by an increasing sense of 
sin — on the other, by a convincing evi- 
dence of approaching punishment — be- 
yond the reach of human aid, and in 
despair of Divine. 

Such a scene as this, I once witnessed 
in the person of a man of high birth — 
high spirit — of great talents — finished 
education — strong passions, and splen- 
did fortune. He was an Infidel and a 
Man of Pleasure. The sad evening 
before the death of that noble, yet igno- 
ble man, and up to his last hours, I was 

preached the Gospel, and converted Sergius, the Ro- 
man governor, to Christianity, and struck the sorcerer, 
Elymas, blind. — Walk. Clas. Die. 

e2 



54 THE CENTAUR 

with him. No one else was there, ex- 
cept his physician and an intimate whom 
he loved, and had rained. As I came in, 
he said, 

" You and the physician have come 
too late — I have neither life or hope. 
You both aim at miracles. You would 
raise the dead." 

Heaven, I said, was merciful. 

" Or I could not have been thus 
guilty. What has it not done to bless, 
and to save me? — I have been too strong 
for Omnipotence ! I have plucked down 
rum. 

I said, the blessed Redeemer — 

"Hold! hold! you wound me! That 
is the Rock on which I split — I denied 
his name." 

Refusing to hear any thing from me, 
or to take any thing from the Physician, 
he lay silent, as far as sudden darts of 



NOT FABULOUS. 56 

pain would permit, until the clock struck, 
then, with vehemence : 

"Oh, Time! Time! It is fit thou 
shouldst thus strike thy murderer to the 
heart — how art thou fled forever! A 
month!— O, for a single week! I ask not 
for years, although an age is too little 
for the much I have to do/' 

On my saying, we could not do 
too much — that Heaven was a blessed 
place — 

"So much the worse. 'Tis lost! 
'tis lost ! — Heaven is to me the severest 
part of Hell !" 

Soon after I proposed to pray. 

" Pray you that can. I never prayed. 
I cannot pray — nor need I. Is not 
Heaven on my side already? It closes 
with my conscience. Its severest strokes 
but second my own/' 

His friend, being much touched, even 
to tears, at this, (who could forbear? I 



56 THE CENTAUR 

could not) with a most affectionate 
look, he said — 

" Keep those tears for thyself. I have 
undone thse. — Dost thou weep for me? 
That is cruel. What can pain me more?" 

Here his friend, too much affected, 
would have left him. 

" No, stay. Thou still may est hope — 
therefore hear me. How madly have / 
talked? how madly hast thou listened 
and believed? But look on my present 
state, as a full answer to thee, and to 
myself. This body is all weakness and 
pain — but my soul, as if stung up by 
torment, to greater strength and spirit — 
is full powerful to reason — full mighty 
to suffer. And that, which triumphs 
within the jaws of mortality, is doubtless 
immortal — and as for a Deity, nothing 
less than an Almighty could inflict 
what I feel." 

I was about to congratulate this pas- 



NOT FABULOUS. 57 

sive, involuntary confessor, on his assert- 
ing the two prime articles of his creed, 
extorted by the rack of nature, when he 
thus, very passionately— 

" No — no ! let me speak on. I have 
not long to speak. My much injured 
friend! — my soul, as my body, lies in 
ruins — in scattered fragments of broken 
thought! Remorse for the past, throws 
my thoughts on the future. Worse dread 
of the future, strikes them back on the 
past. I turn, and turn, but find no ray. 
Didst thou feel half the mountain that 
is on me, thou wouldst struggle with the 
martyr for his stake, and bless Heaven 
for the flames. That is not an everlasting 
flame — that is not an unquenchable fire.* 

How were we struck, soon after, still 
more, when, with an eye of distraction, 
and a face of despair, he cried out — 

"My principles have poisoned my 
friend — my extravagance has beggared 



58 THE CENTAUR 

my boy — my unkindness has murdered 
my wife ! And is there another Hell ! ! 
thou blasphemed, yet most indulgent 
Lord God! Hell itself is a refuge, if it 
hides me from thy frown." 

Soon after, his understanding failed. 
His terrified imagination uttered horrors 
not to be repeated, or ever forgotten. 
And ere the sun arose — the gay, young, 
noble, ingenious, accomplished, and most 
wretched Altamont expired. 

If this is a Man of Pleasure, what is 
a Man of Pain? How quiek, how total 
the transit of the devotees of fancied 
pleasures. In what a dismal gloom they 
set forever. How short, alas! the day 
of their rejoicing. For a brief period, 
they glitter, dazzle, enchant, infatuate 
and gain deluded admirers. In a mo- 
ment, where are they? Oblivion covers 
their memories, unless infamy snatches 
them from its dark shades, and records 



NOT FABULOUS. 59 

their triumphs in its long-living annals. 
Their sufferings, as in the case of poor 
Altamont, may bleed the bosom of heart- 
stricken friends: for Altamont had a 
friend. He might have had many. His 
transient morning should have been the 
dawn of an immortal day. His memory 
might have been gloriously enrolled on 
the book of enduring fame, and on the 
records of a happy eternity. His memory 
would then have left a sweet fragrance 
behind it, grateful to surviving friends — 
salutary to after generations. He was 
endowed with a capacity and advan- 
tages, with which he could have greatly 
benefited mankind, and placed his name 
high on the catalogue of great and good 
men. But, with the talents of an angel, 
a man may be a fool. If he judges 
amiss in the Supreme point, judging 
right in all else, but aggravates his folly. 
It shows him to be wrong, with the full 



60 THE CENTAUR 

capacity of being right; so fatal, when 
abused, are the richest blessings of Hea- 
ven. O ! that his keen agonies were an 
expiation for the past — not a presage of 
the future. Well may such a man envy 
the mere brute. 

In view of this awful death-bed scene, 
ye staunch pursuers of Pleasure — open- 
ing in full cry on its burning scent! who 
run yourselves out of breath, health, cre- 
dit, estate, and even life, after this ignis 
fatuus — stop, for a moment — slacken 
your pace, and cool the fervor of your 
chace. It is a friend who calls, and he 
is his own who hears and obeys. 

If there is a scene on earth, better 
calculated to benefit you, turn your eyes 
from it, and onward pursue your wild 
career — if not, listen to a few words that 
may fix themselves firmly in your memo- 
ries — words that, if soon forgotten, may 
recur to your deep-toned thoughts — your 



NOT FABULOUS. 61 

aching hearts, when your Utopian* chace 
is over, and Pleasure is lost in the dis- 
tance. Whilst you admire the refined 
accomplishments and high attainments 
of poor Altamont, remember that Unbe- 
lief made him an Infidel, and that In- 
fidelity made him a Man of Pleasure. 
Look at the rock on which he split — 
view it as a beacon light, illuminated by 
a kind Providence, to guide and guard 
you from danger, in your voyage to 
Eternity. Let his fatal errors, his deep 
distress, his keen despair, caution you 
against a similar fate. He once, as you 
may now, seemed to imagine this life 
immortal, and spread his sails full to the 
breeze of Pleasure. Suddenly his soul 
took its flight, where, who can tell \ If 
you follow in his wake, in the same fatal 
track, your doom will be sealed as her- 

* Utopian — Imaginary, chimerical pleasures. 

Walker, 
F 



62 THE CENTAUR 

metically as his. Smitten, transfixed, 
when most secure in his imagination. 
From the most towering heights of con- 
viviality, he plunged, suddenly, into the 
abyss of distress, too deep to be fathom- 
ed — too horrible to be described — too 
awful to be borne. In your gaiety, in- 
creasing dangers accumulate over, around 
and beneath you. More arrows are in 
the same quiver — you are as fair and 
tempting a mark — yes, more tempting, 
if his sad fate shall not admonish you to 
flee the wrath to come, and not trample 
on his forgotten tomb. Tempt not the 
archer that pierced his heart — he never 
misses his mark. His bow, once drawn 
— the string let loose — the aim is sure — 
the work is done — the mortal dies. 
From your gay position, embowered 
with roses, you may see no threatening 
prospects — no danger of death. In this 
you may be sadly mistaken. The grim 



NOT FABULOUS. 63 

monster delights to conceal his ghastly 
form in thickets of flowers. Often, the 
gayest of the gay are his first and 
choicest victims. It is sunshine with 
you now — you think all is well — it is 
the season of indulgence, of pleasure and 
hilarity. But seasons change — even a 
bright hour may close with a furious 
and chilling storm. You, who are now 
all social comfort, gathered in flocks, 
like birds of passage bound for other 
climes, fledging your impatient wings 
for new delights, may suddenly be sev- 
ered, like them, by disease, and by the 
arrow of death. If by the former only, 
you may linger on in painful agony, and, 
for the first time, make the acquaintance 
of two great strangers — your own heart 
and Him who created it. 

Happy will you be if this acquaint- 
ance shall restore you to the favor of an 
offended, but long-suffering and merciful 



64 THE CENTAUR 

God, who is ever willing to receive a 
returning prodigal. You who are stran- 
gers to care — buoyant in mirth — devo- 
tees of Pleasure — reflect on the time, 
should you be spared, when your physi- 
cal powers will be enervated, and sink 
into effeminacy — you become recluses 
in the world, and amusement shall lose 
all its charms — when chilling disease 
shall cool and thicken the purple cur- 
rent that now flushes your cheeks — 
when you shall be a burden to your- 
selves and those around you — when the 
goddess, Pleasure, shall spurn you from 
her presence, and you shall feel, deeply 
and keenly feel — an aching void that 
earth can never fill, and which nothing 
but Religion can ever supply. Be wise 
to-day — to-morrow you may die. 

There are but few, who have not, at 
some time, either stung by conscience, 
or alarmed by some providential event, 



NOT FABULOUS. 65 

roused, as from a dream, to a sense of 
impending danger. The longer the 
sleep, the greater the surprise — and if 
the subject dreams to the last, the sur- 
prise is overwhelming — the pain and 
horror inexpressible — the alarm and 
dread terrific. Has the death knell of 
a friend — a loud one — never alarmed 
you? If not, deep and dangerous must 
be your sleep. Is the death of a friend 
nothing to you? It is big with good or 
ill — you cannot remain neutral. It hast- 
ens your amendment, or aggravates your 
offences — and renders you tenfold a 
criminal. 

When I stand on the verge of the 
grave even of a stranger — when I see the 
mould covering all that is left of human 
pride — when I hear the solemn words, 
"dust to dust" my heart swells with 
emotion — the fountain of my sympathies 
gushes out — my soul is inspired with 

f2 



66 THE CENTAUR 

contemplation, sometimes painful, but 
always salutary. Even over the grave 
of a good man we weep. How awful, 
then, to look into the grave of a friend, 
whose principles have ruined his soul, 
whose follies have hastened his death, 
dying with admonitions on his lips, hor- 
rors in his mind, and the pains of wo in 
his heart. The thunder of his groans 
would echo forever on a penetrable ear, 
and reverberate through every avenue 
of a feeling heart. It is sensible proof 
of the final doom, the unalterable, the 
melancholy destiny of the finally im- 
penitent. If this would not alarm you, 
nothing can; and if not alarmed, you 
will perish forever. Look at your dan- 
ger and escape for your life. We live 
in a mutable world — to keep within the 
reach of mercy, is the grand concern 
and supreme blessing of human life. 
Sincerely and truly, your friend. 



NOT FABULOUS. 67 



LETTER III. 

PLEASURE. 

Dear Sir — You seem to think that 
many of our most learned and talented 
men are so far gone, that they cannot 
be reclaimed. Whilst life remains, we 
continue our exertions to save the body. 
How much more should we bring into 
action our noblest powers, to rescue im- 
mortal souls from endless ruin. Aviola, 
a consul in the time of Gordian* re- 

# Gordian Marcus Antonius, a Roman emperor, 
was created Caesar in 237, at the age of 12 years; 
and in the following year became emperor. He was 
a worthy man and a just ruler. In 242, he defeated 
the barbarians in Thrace and Moesia, drove the Per- 
sian monarch, Sapor, beyond the Euphrates, and com- 
pelled him to abandon all his conquests. He died in 
244, near Circessium, some suppose by assassination. 

Dav. Biog. Die, 



68 THE CENTAUR 

vived on his funeral pile, the moment 
the caloric exerted its influence upon 
his inanimate body. We should never 
cease our exertions to kindle a flame of 
holy fire, that may warm into life some 
poor soul, dead in sin, and cause it to 
rise, like the Phoenix* from its ashes, 
and re-assume its former glory. 

Permit me to place the joys of the 
Man of Pleasure, and those of the Man 
of God, in juxtaposition, that the differ- 
ence may be seen in the same glass. 
They differ in kind and object. Those 
of the former, are temporal, transitory, 
uncertain in duration, and, like all ter- 
restrial things, have bitter dregs in the 
bottom of the cup. A gay inquietude 
and tumultuous delight, render them im- 
perfect and unsatisfying to the immortal 
soul. Like some liquors, they are in 

* Phoenix — the bird that is supposed to exist single, 
and rise again from its own ashes. — Walker, 



NOT FABULOUS. 69 

a state of fermentation and confusion, 
while they sparkle and smile, and when 
the gases have escaped, they become in- 
sipid and flat. More than all, they are sur- 
charged with the miasma of disease and 
death — disease that often destroys, with 
a fearful rapidity, body, mind, and soul. 
The joys of the Man of God are 
drawn from the pure fountains of spirit- 
ual and enduring bliss, inspiring a de- 
lightful hope of a happy immortality 
beyond the grave. He is ever cheered 
by the smiles of Divine favour, builds 
his superstructure on the Rock of Ages, 
and, by the eye of faith, can look be- 
yond the veil of mortality, and fondly 
anticipate the time when he shall throw 
off this mortal coil, and commence a ca- 
reer of endless felicity and enrapturing 
glory. His joys here, are celestial — are 
antepasts of heaven. Like a calm sum- 
mer evening, his mind is undisturbed, 



70 THE CENTAUR 

placid, and serene. He sees God in 
every thing, and adores. 

The joys of the former are a passion, 
mingled with suffering, often resulting in 
death. The joys of the latter resemble 
an inspiration, in which the Divine cause 
supersedes human infirmity. His soul 
reposes on the promises of God. Like 
the Halcyon* that builds its nest on the 
waves, when storms arise, he may be 
tossed, but not endangered, for the bil- 
lows that would destroy the former, 
would rock the latter into an eternal 
rest. 

When the good man lies down to 

* Halcyon — in fabulous history, the daughter of 
JEolus, and wife of Ceyx, who was drowned as he 
was on his way to consult the oracle. The wife, 
being apprized 'in a dream of her husband's fate, and 
the next day finding his body washed on shore, threw 
herself into the sea, and she and her husband were 
changed into birds, by some authors called Alcyone, 
but more usually Halcyon. — Walk. Clas. Die. 



NOT FABULOUS. 71 

sleep, no fear from dangers of the night 
disturb his strong confidence in Divine 
protection. When morning dawns, his 
first thoughts are inspired by faith in the 
immaculate Redeemer, the golden chain 
that reaches from earth to heaven, and 
consecrates the day. He cometh forth 
as a bridegroom from his chamber. 

The Man of Pleasure has his little 
clouds at the brightest — his course of 
happiness is retarded by a straw — the 
least accident deranges his locomotive 
engine, and often throws his car of Plea- 
sure off the track — sometimes destroy- 
ing it entirely. The decorations, luxu- 
ries, and superfluities of life, are vital to 
his adulterated felicity — without them 
he is miserable. 

To the good man, these are mere ex- 
crescences ; he has no more feeling in 
them than in his hair, which he trims, 
whenever it grows too long. No acci- 



72 THE CENTAUR 

dent can retard his onward and upward 
career to mansions in the skies; he en- 
dures real calamities, unmoved and un- 
hurt. He is more calm and serene when 
grappling with death, than is the Man of 
Pleasure in the clearest sunshine of life. 
And why so wide a difference in the 
joys of these two characters \ Because 
the hopes and fears of the former are 
confined to the dim spot in creation 
called Earth. He makes mountains of 
little things, because he has nothing great 
in his inventory. At their loss he turns 
pale, and is inconsolable. He knows 
they are all labelled, " Uncertain." — 
Fear preys upon his mind like a Prome- 
thean vulture, and hope is too weak to 
impart permanent consolation. It is 
not, as with the good man, an anchor to 
his soul, both sure and steadfast. The 
slightest commotion of the waters — a 
slight flaw of wind, may throw his frail 



NOT FABULOUS. 73 

bark on its beam ends, and derange, 
perhaps injure or destroy, his entire cargo 
of happiness. In a violent storm, he is 
ever in danger of being completely 
wrecked and dashed in pieces. 

The good man takes God for his pro- 
tector, his precious promises for his 
cabin stores, faith for his ballast, wis- 
dom for his rudder, and spiritual hope 
for his sheet anchor. He can look 
calmly on the close of mortal life, and 
anticipate a crown of glory, whilst the 
other is forced to change the plume for 
the cap of sickness, and unbutton his 
buskins on the bed of anguish, terror, 
and death. Unless renewed by Grace, 
this will one day be the closing scene 
of all the actors in the drama of Plea- 
sure. After having run the gauntlet of 
disappointing, painful, imaginary delights 
— and having been afflicted for years 
with a round of amusements — they sud- 

G 



74 



THE CENTAUR 



denly drop from the stage — often un- 
regarded — unlamented — perhaps cover- 
ed with infamy, into that awful abyss, 
" where the worm dieth not, and the fire 
is not quenched!' 

Some of our Men of Pleasure claim, 
also, to be Men of Honor. They will 
not descend to mean vices — they scorn 
to pick the pocket of a man, but are 
ready to rob him of his last dollar in a 
scientific manner, the moment they can 
succeed in decoying him into the sport- 
ing arena. They would not join him 
in a rough and tumble set-to, but would 
murder him on the field of false honor, 
by their superior skill in the use of the 
pistol, the sword, or the bowie knife 
If their immaculate Honor is even sup- 
posed to be violated, by word, look, or 
thought, the laws of religion, justice and 
humanity, become to them a dead letter. 
These are foul blots, the blackest spots 



NOT FABULOUS. 75 

on the map of Pleasure — the most stag- 
nant, murky, poisonous pools in her 
dark domain— the Bohon-Upas of her 
parks and sporting grounds. 

But there is another picture to be 
drawn, to fill up the vacant space which 
I have left between the Good Man, and 
the Man of Pleasure. Its cognomon — 
Thoughts of the Retired Penitent. 

"Yes, blessed, ever blessed be the 
Divine indulgence for this. How wanted 
— how welcome this asylum — this re- 
cess! Here, earth holds its peace, and 
the still small voice from Heaven can 
be heard — the voice ever speaking in 
the human ear. Here let me commune 
with my so long anxious heart, which 
has often pressed me for an audience, 
but always found me pre-engaged — the 
rude world pushing off the conference 
to a more convenient season, although 
a depending eternity chid my delay. 



76 THE CENTAUR 

" While the noise of the world beats 
its drum in our ears — while bustle and 
hurry throw their dust in our eyes — who 
can hear the soft whispers of conscience 
— or read the strong demands of reason, 
although written in capitals on the com- 
posed and disenchanted heart? I now 
read, hear, and tremble. I tremble at 
that in which I once triumphed — I blush 
at that of which I was once vain. Oh ! 
Pleasure! Pleasure! what art thou? 
The death of reason — of Heaven — of 
the whole character of man. 

" The cloud, now a little broken, 
which wrapped me up in night, look 
around, my soul enlarged, and say — 
where, or what am I? Immensity about 
me — eternity before me. My pleasure ! 
a shadow — my time! a moment — my 
life! a vapor. And shall a moment — 
shade — vapor — engage all my love, en- 
gross all my thoughts, and bid an angel 



NOT FABULOUS. 



77 



wait my better leisure, and the Creator 
of angels to defer his call until to-mor- 
row? What, my soul! if he should 
call no more ! Good God ! if he should 
call no more! if he should leave thee to 
thyself! Where then is hope? where 
then art thou? 

"Man, desperate, deluded man — the 
first moment he sets up for himself, im- 
patient of control, and takes the reins 
into his own mad hands — the first mo- 
ment he is at liberty, he is the greatest 
of slaves. How shackled! how ha- 
rassed! how starved! In the midst of 
his riots, what a famine of joys! None 
are wise in time, who are fools for eter- 
nity. Dreadful independence! The first 
moment man quits his hold upon his 
Creator — he drops into ruin and dis- 
traction — he falls, like Apollyon, from 
the height of his glory, into the sink of 
pollution and shame. 

g 2 



78 THE CENTAUR 

" Out of that deep, I call unto thee, 
O Lord! O thou immaculate Redeemer, 
hear the cry of a humble penitent. Dis- 
solve the charms that tie me down to 
trifling, terrestrial, infernal, ruinous de- 
lights, and give me wings to rise into 
day, and reach the things that belong to 
my eternal peace. Where is the creature 
thou hast made — the heart which thou 
hast given! This sink of pollution — this 
nest of all vices did not come from thee. 
No — I have snatched my heart out of 
thy blessed hand, and let it fall in the 
mire. It is worse for me, that thy mer- 
cies are over all thy works, since / have 
transformed myself into a Centaur. 

" I have been sleeping on a precipice, 
dreaming I was in Heaven — yes — on its 
very brink, with vengeance frowning 
over, and flames rolling beneath me. 
What horrors awoke me! what a gulf 
lies before me! what mercy has pre- 



NOT FABULOUS. 79 

served me! How awful my doom, had 
I died yesterday! O, let this mountain- 
ous load on my heart, sink me lower 
and deeper, until I can pour out my 
soul in adoration to my God, for sparing 
my forfeited life. Had I felt these pangs 
before — sooner I should have been re- 
claimed — broke off my allegiance to the 
enemy of souls, and enlisted under the 
banner of the Cross, and enjoyed the 
consolation of a returning — welcomed 
prodigal. 

" On searching my heart, that abyss 
of corruption, I find there is hardly a 
virtue, which my hypocrisy has not 
worn as a mask — scarcely a vice, that 
my presumption has not induced me to 
practise — thus bringing into discredit, 
the sincerest virtue, and making more 
heinous, the deepest guilt. To the 
public a pernicious pest — to myself, a 
fatal assassin. 



80 THE CENTAUR 

" But, as I discover new crimes in 
myself by my own awakened reflection 
— by the gift of thy grace, I discover 
new glories, goodness, and wonders in 
God. I have lived in darkness — groped 
in the shadows of eternal death — 
wrapped myself in the world — saw no- 
thing aright — and was blinded by the 
goddess of Pleasure, and worshipped 
at her shrine. 

" Now, O my God, thy divine attri- 
butes break in upon me like the morn- 
ing, and awake me to thy presence. I 
see Thee in every thing, and seeing — I 
adore — adoring, I tremble. Thy attri- 
butes lighten upon me, and strike me, 
like him of Tarsus, to the dust. Like 
him I submit, plead for mercy and par- 
don, resign myself unreservedly into thy 
hands, for time and eternity, and now 
anxiously, imploringly, and sincerely in- 
quire, what wilt thou have me to do? 



NOT FABULOUS. 81 

Say, Lord, and I will obey Thee. Grant 
me thy pardoning love — thy sanctifying 
grace — thy blissful presence. Then, 
Lord! come the worst, I will not com- 
plain. My joy shall burst through the 
frowns of the world, and the shadows of 
death. Then blessings, and honor, and 
glory, and power, be to Him who sitteth 
on the throne, and to the Lamb, who has 
nailed my sins to his cross. Thus will 
I sing in spite of my groans; thus will I 
sing with my last expiring breath; thus 
will I sing forever and ever. Amen. O 
my soul ! Amen ! Amen." 

My friend has now before him, my 
faint portrait of the Profligate, the 
Penitent, and the Good Man. I have 
long gazed on the disease of the former, 
and aimed to point out a remedy to miti- 
gate, if not remove its malignity, and 
cure the patient. There is a sovereign 
balm in prayer. Although the most easy, 



82 THE CENTAUR 

and to the Christian, the most delightful 
duty, it seems, with many, the hardest to 
be performed. It costs them so little 
pains, they seem to think they may as 
well let it alone. But this is a sad 
mistake. It is the supreme — the great 
mother of duty. All other duties and 
virtues are its progeny — nursed, nour- 
ished and sustained by it. Devotion is 
the asylum of human frailty — the sup- 
port of heavenly perfection — and, when 
sanctified by faith, the golden chain of 
union, that keeps open the blessed com- 
munication between heaven and earth — 
the grand telegraph between God and 
man. He who has never prayed, can- 
not know its joys — he who has prayed 
as he ought, can never forget how much 
is to be gained by earnest, sincere, and 
fervent prayers. 

Dear sir, 
Yours, affectionately. 



NOT FABULOUS. 83 



LETTER IV. 

Dear Sir: — In this and the following 
letters, I shall touch on five points. 
1. Review of Life; 2. General Cause 
of Security in Sin; 3. Thoughts for 
Age; 4. The Dignity of Man; 5. The 
Restoration of the Centaur to Hu- 
manity. 

review of life. 

There is nothing in which men are 
more liberal, than in the expenditure of 
their advice, be their stock ever so small. 
I have bestowed an abundance of mine 
on our Centaurs, which may not be 
thankfully received, although freely given, 
and out of motives pure and disinterested. 

A man can see himself in cool retro- 
spection only. When warm in action, 



84 THE CENTAUR 

his eyes are intent on the object or point 
in view, his prejudices and passions are 
excited, and corrupt his judgment. But 
in a calm review, he becomes rather a 
bystander, than the party — and can 
judge as impartially of himself, as of 
others; and, if he has a correct view of 
himself, he will judge his own heart with 
more severity, than another would judge 
it for him. 

Wisdom is the growth of experience, 
but experience is not the growth of ac- 
tion, but reflection on our actions. The 
seeds of wisdom are sown in an active 
life, but he who never reflects, reaps no 
harvest, and carries the burden of age 
without the rewards of experience, and 
finds the spear of ambition blunted, his 
spirits languishing, and his infirmities 
burdensome, without ever having traced 
these effects to their causes. 

Reflection on the past is useful; to the 



NOT FABULOUS. 85 

wise man, it is natural. Look on the 
stormy sea, when billows roll in moun- 
tain waves — then on the peaceful lake, 
when the feather, or the fallen leaf lies 
unmoved, and you see the difference be- 
tween the cool evening and the high 
meridian of man. Inactive youth and 
unreflecting age, are worse than trance 
blanks in the book of life; they are usu- 
ally disfigured by blots that destroy the 
beauty of the whole. Man varies no less 
than those changing insects, at which 
he so much wonders. In his morning he 
creeps; long before noon he flutters and 
flies; at meridian he is expanded in his 
full glory; as his sun descends, his bril- 
liancy decreases; at evening, chilled into 
languor, he crawls into corners, lies hid, 
sleeps much, and w T hen awake, having 
but little ground before him, he naturally 
looks back on the past; delights to talk 
of by-gone days, rehearse his brave ex- 

H 



86 



THE CENTAUR 



ploits, his hair-breadth escapes, his child- 
hood frolics, his youthful gambols, and 
his manly acts. If a wise and good man, 
matured by reflection, how idle soever 
his tale, he always draws a moral from 
it, w r hich, if heeded, cannot fail to im- 
prove his audience. 

In the review of life, w r e see many 
lines traced on its map, not pleasing and 
satisfactory; yet salutary and useful, be- 
cause true delineations of human nature, 
varying, changing, metamorphosed hu- 
man nature. Recall to mind the fruit- 
less friendships, bitter enmities, rash pre- 
sumptions, cowardly despairs, unmanly 
flatteries, bold indecencies, idle schemes, 
chimerical hopes, groundless fears, op- 
portunities lost, admonitions slighted, es- 
capes unacknowledged, evils improved, 
blessings neglected, and trifles admired, 
and we behold a picture of ourselves that 
makes us blush with shame. In bolder 



NOT FABULOUS. 87 

lines we may see traced, our inordinate 
desires after applause, our reaching after 
fame, our ambition soaring high, our par- 
simony in some things, our prodigality 
in others, and our want of wise discre- 
tion in many. On the back ground, the 
officious, ever-meddling, bold-intending, 
little self-love, stands conspicuous. Too 
often has it exerted a controlling power 
over our better judgments. It is the 
progenitor of that pest of the many, 
whose richest food is the applause of 
others — the greatest vanity, not strictly 
vicious. It is the opposite of a bold 
defiance of all reproach. The former 
makes coxcombs — the latter, felons. 

A capital weakness of man, is the 
strong ascendant his wishes have over 
his understanding. This, more than any 
one thing, makes a Centaur. We have 
often looked on our wishes as infallible 
arguments for the certainty of what we 



88 THE CENTAUR 

desired, when others could see \ve were 
doomed to disappointment 

In my retrospect, I would not forget 
our departed friends — nor those tender 
ties that bound them to us, but now cut 
asunder by the scythe of relentless death. 
What numerous monuments rise over 
the cold bosoms that once warmly em- 
braced us — that shared our councils — 
our ambitions — our joys — our pleasures 
— our pains and our sorrows. Their 
epitaphs, collected, would make a vo- 
lume, instructive and salutary if read 
aright. The monument of a friend is a 
richer legacy to the considerate, than 
any parchment can convey. Human 
wisdom is mostly the growth of a bleed- 
ing heart. The thought of death is the 
directing helm of human life — he who 
sails without it will surely be wrecked. 

What I like least in this survey for 
fear it should prove our own case, is 



NOT FABULOUS. 89 

this: I find old men prone to think well 
of themselves— not because they Ay from 
vice — but because worn out nature repels 
vice, and causes it to fly from them. 
They repute themselves virtuous, be- 
cause free from former vicious indul- 
gences, now beyond their physical 
powers — set down impotence for vic- 
tory, and triumph in their peace, be- 
cause they can no longer attract the 
attention of foes. True, I see and trem- 
ble for some vigorous old men, who, 
blameless in early life, are at last over- 
taken by folly, and dragged, by their 
white beards, into the foulest enormities 
and most scandalous sins. Faults, which 
are the natural growth of distinct periods 
of life, may meet with some toleration, 
not approval — but the unsightly growth 
of vice out of season, no one can tole- 
rate — for the hot-bed of Lucifer, only 

h2 



90 THE CENTAUR 

produces crimes in which nature has no 
agency. 

Heaven guard us from such an end! 
for our beginning was far from blame- 
less. In our early days we had our 
little villanies — our vice in miniature. 
As years rolled on, our iniquities in- 
creased, and before we were men, we 
were no petty criminals. We wished 
for wisdom, but mistaking its character 
and habitation, we sought for it in the 
avenues of folly. Frequent, sometimes 
severe, were our conflicts with our vices 
— but we soon made a new treaty with 
them. Pleasure had its charms — virtue 
its efforts — sometimes so furious as to 
throw its rider. Virtue and wisdom, as 
I humbly trust, finally triumphed, and 
rescued us from slavery. Still the dis- 
temper of the past periods of our lives, 
are the best antidotes of those that may 
yet assail us. 



NOT FABULOUS. 91 

Let us look to Him whose hand has 
so often been stretched on this side of 
the clouds, as pointing us to good, warn- 
ing us of evil, showing how little this 
world can give, by pouring on us its full 
enjoyment — then turning our hearts to 
a better — showing us, by the calamities 
of others, how much suffering flesh is 
heir to, keeping us in awe, and ourselves 
unhurt — now breaking to pieces all our 
schemes of enjoyment — then raising our 
happiness out of the ruins — teaching us 
humility, gratitude, and on whom to rely 
— showing us, that most of our triumphs 
are errors, and our disappointments — 
escapes — now bringing us to the brink 
of the grave to repress presumption, 
then snatching us from it when past 
human aid, to repel despair and kindle 
devotion — defeating our imaginary wise 
plans, and blessing us in spite of our 
folly ; providing for our best interests in 



92 THE CENTAUR 

both worlds, as far as the nature of hu- 
manity will admit; and preparing us for 
a final and triumphant victory, through 
faith in Christ, over death and the grave, 
and a happy entrance into the blissful 
regions of refulgent glory. 

Nothing in the review of life can give 
delight but our trophies over sin, all of 
which have been gained by hard fight- 
ing. Unbought pleasure is not the 
growth of earth. This is a militant 
state, in which our armor must give 
place only to our shroud. Every mo- 
ment is big with importance, and will 
return, with its every thought and whis- 
per, before the throne of Him who lent 
it to man, and commands it back at the 
fixed time, to make its report to the 
Register of the court of the great Jeho- 
vah. Time, to man, is serious as eter- 
nity — for to him, eternity is based on 
time — it ordains and fixes his fate for- 



NOT FABULOUS. 93 

ever. An idle day, in a life so short and 
precarious, may be big with guilt — for 
an idle man's head is the devil's work- 
shop. Negative sins may be as criminal 
as overt transgressions. 

What, in the picture of our review, 
do we see ? At half a glance, I per- 
ceive, that although we have made a 
shift to creep out of the Augean stable* 
we have not scaled the temple of virtue 
— we have made the choice of Hercules,\ 

# Augean, from Augeus, a king of Elis, whose sta- 
ble, of 3,000 oxen, had not been cleansed for nine 
years, yet Hercules cleaned it in one day. 

Walk. Clas. Die. 

f Hercules. — According to the ancients, there were 
many persons of this name. The most celebrated 
was the son of Jupiter and Alemena. He was brought 
up at Thebes, and before he had completed his eighth 
month, Juno, intent on his destruction, sent two snakes 
to devour him. He seized these serpents, the mo- 
ment they rushed upon him, and squeezed them to 
death, whilst his brother, Iphiclus, alarmed all in the 
house by his shrieks. He was early instructed in the 
liberal arts and became the pupil of the Centaur 



94 THE CENTAUR 

without his strength — we have lopped 
off one head of the Hydra* and per- 

Chiron. In his 18th year ; he subdued the lion that de- 
voured the flocks of his supposed father. In obedience 
to the command of Eurystheus, under whose control he 
was for twelve years, he performed what are termed 
the twelve labors, viz : He subdued the Nemeean Lion — 
the Lemaean Hydra — the Stag with golden horns and 
brazen feet — the Erimanthian Boar — cleaned the sta- 
bles of Augeus — killed the wild bull of Crete — the 
carnivorous birds in Arcadia — obtained the mares of 
Diomedes, which fed on human flesh — -obtained the 
girdle of the queen of the Amazons — killed the mon- 
ster Geryon, king of Gadis, and brought away his flocks 
— obtained the apples of the garden of the Hesperides, 
and brought upon earth the three-headed dog, Cerbe- 
rus, guardian of the entrance of the infernal regions. 
After performing many other exploits, Dejanira be- 
came jealous of him, and sent him a dress, infected 
with poison, which penetrated his bones ; and finding 
he must die, he erected a burning pile on Mount 
iEtna, spread on it the skin of the Nemaean Lion, laid 
down upon it, and was consumed. — Walk. Clas. Die. 

# Hydra — a huge monster, that infested the lake 
Lerna, in Peloponnesus, the fruit of Echidna's union 
with Typhon. Some writers say it had an hundred 
heads — but the best authority fixes the number at 
nine. As soon as one was cut off, two more grew 



NOT FABULOUS. 95 

mitted others to shoot out from the 
bleeding stump. We are not quite hori- 
zontals, nor are we quite upright — al- 
though we have set up for reformers, we 
are not perfect men. 

A full Man is a glorious being — a 
rarity — like angels' visits, few and far 
between. A Man is an exalted charac- 
ter — doubly great — a hero and a king. 
Few kings are so great as to reign over 
their own hearts — few heroes so victo- 
rious, as to drive dominions, principali- 
ties and powers, before them. These 
meet and blend in the real Man — a be- 
ing created after the image of God — 
free, rational, immortal, but a little lower 
than the angels, and destined for in- 
creasing greatness — the sublimest speci- 
men of conception and skill, in all the 
works of our great Creator. 

from the same place, unless the wound was cauter- 
ized by fire. — lb. 



96 THE CENTAUR 

Alas ! how have we blotted and de- 
faced the grand original ! We have 
but poorly carried out the design of our 
Creation. But still, I would not repeat 
my part in the mingled comedies and 
tragedies of human life. I would not 
be re-jumbled in the rough Thespian* 
cast, dragged on by those two skeletons 
— half-starved Hope and panting Ex- 
pectation — over bad roads, through 
sloughs and bayous — bivouacked, and 
my fellow soldiers in a constant con- 
spiracy against my pay and my ap- 
plause. Here and there, I might be 
blessed with a pleasant hour that would 
make me smile ; but nature and reason 
start back at the thought. To find a 
small pearl in one oyster out of a mil- 
lion, is a faint inducement to make us 

* Thespian from Thespus, king of Thespia, in Boeotia, 
who permitted his fifty daughters to surrender them- 
selves to Hercules. — Walk, Clas. Die. 



NOT FABULOUS. 97 

fall ardently in love with continued fish- 
ing. If we are truly Christians, our 
wishes and our nature push us into eter- 
nity. Let our affections be raised above 
the things of time and sense, for we 
must soon emerge from our chrysalis 
form, and assume a new and more glo- 
rious body, or be more degraded in our 
exit to the lower world. 

Let us no longer clutch so firmly, and 
love so ardently, our gold — that bane of 
private happiness — that presage of pub- 
lic slavery — that sure annihilation of a 
rational creature — that creation of a 
wretch eternal. It has robbed earth of 
more lives, and Heaven of more souls, 
than the collective body of all other 
evils, discharging their whole quivers on 
man. If weaned from this world, if our 
treasures are deposited in the impregna- 
ble safe of Heaven, we may smile on 
death, rejoice in view of the grave, 

I 



98 THE CENTAUR 

and find our checks accepted and 
promptly paid at the counter of the 
Bank of enduring Happiness, eternal in 
the Heavens, with a fund exhaustless in 
quantity, and unalloyed in quality. 

THE GENERAL CAUSE OF SECURITY 
IN SIN. 

The cause of this fatal, heart-chilling, 
soul-killing error, is resolvable in four 
words — presuming on Divine mercy. 
The man who reposes on the lap of 
carnal security reasons thus : " I know 
myself worthless, yet earth pours its 
blessings upon me, and Heaven has pur- 
chased me with blood. What is to be 
feared, what is not to be hoped, from 
such a God ? Be my crimes what they 
may, ' God is Love,' and will interpose, 
in his own way and time, to save me." 
Thus citing Scripture to his shame, and 
the mercies of God to his ruin. It is a 



NOT FABULOUS. 99 

self-evident truth, that " God is Love ;" 
but shall this excuse a man for becom- 
ing a monster — a Centaur? All admit 
there is an admirable unity between the 
precepts of virtue and the dictates of 
common reason, and that virtue prac- 
tised, results in the greatest good to so- 
ciety. He that is not virtuous, can give 
no satisfactory account why he was born 
with reason and conscience, and why 
he desires happiness, being barren of the 
fruits of all. He transforms himself into a 
Centaur, and, in his moments of reflec- 
tion, if he looks at his unnatural features, 
wonders how he became such a monster 
— starts back from the mirror, an object 
of astonishment to himself and others. 

This would seem enough to make us 
abhor vice, even if God was Love to 
that absurd degree, that the folly of 
some may fancy, and which their vices 
most wish and want. But there is no 



100 THE CENTAUR 

such love in Him — no mercy uncon- 
ditional. Repentance, faith, and obe- 
dience — the price we must pay. Of 
man, God has no need — he sees no merit 
in him. Why, then, this love for a 
worm ! — to-day, crawling out of earth — 
to-morrow, more despicably dissolving 
in corruption. It is because man is im- 
mortal, and must suffer or enjoy forever. 
This moved his compassion, his solici- 
tude, his councils held on high. The 
wonders of his love ! how enrapturing ! 
Heaven is astonished, and angels are 
amazed at its sublime exhibitions. — 
Men, alone, are dull spectators of its 
grandeur, and yet presume on this love 
to save them, although they abuse it 
every moment they continue to reject 
the offered terms of mercy. Deep and 
deplorable is the mistake of those who 
presume to sin because "God is Love." 
Such men make a demonstration of 



NOT FABULOUS. 101 

their danger the basis of their security, 
because God, solicitous for their welfare, 
has warned them of approaching dan- 
ger, and manifested an anxiety for their 
salvation. 

Such men reason badly — and, what is 
worse, experience is lost upon them. 
They know they must die — most believe, 
and all fear they are immortal — and if 
immortal, that there is a Heaven for good 
men, and may be a Hell into which 
the finally impenitent are irrecoverably 
plunged. Unless our Centaurs lay aside 
their senses as well as reason, they must 
not indulge in hopes created by fancy 
only to be blasted by reality. Let them 
no longer turn the indulgence of Heaven 
into destruction, and gather poison from 
the tree of life. God is Love— HE is also 
terrible in that love, because it informs 
us of our portentious danger. " With 
the Lord there is mercy, therefore shall he 

i2 



102 THE CENTAUR 

be feared!' With man there is immor- 
tality — therefore should he tremble — 
tremble at his own power, by which he 
will unchangeably fix his own doom for 
eternity — tremble at his high association 
if true to himself — angels, his compan- 
ions — God his friend. But if all these 
considerations shall but increase pre- 
sumption, they will fearfully enhance 
approaching danger, and hasten the aw- 
ful plunge into the dark abyss, where 
hope and mercy are lost forever. Infi- 
dels! Men of Pleasure! awake from your 
carnal security ! flee from the precipice, 
now crumbling under your feet — come 
out from the ruins of a fallen world, and 
dispel the clouds of unrepented guilt. 
Hoping and confiding, without repenting 
and reforming — wishing and willing, 
without sincerely embracing, will never 
enable you to gain the goal of pure and 
undefiled religion; without which, God 



NOT FABULOUS. 103 

will be to you, a consuming fire. Indif- 
ference will strengthen your security — 
security will increase negligence — these 
will court temptations — they will insure 
a fall into that state, when you will im- 
ploringly, but vainly wish you had never 
been born. Again I say, it is a friend 
who calls — happy will they be, who lis- 
ten and obey in time. 

THOUGHTS FOR AGE. 

Folly is the favorite of mankind 
when in the hilarity of life — hence, we 
are not very anxious that old age should 
creep upon us, although the period of 
wisdom, if men are ever wise. It is true, 
we have arrived at that point of time — 
yet we scarce believe it — feel it less, 
only when fatigue and pain admonish 
us of the fact, because so familiar with 
it. Eternity has so often passed our 
lips, that it seldom reaches our hearts 



104 THE CENTAUR 

with proper force. Did it enter there 
with its dread realities, it would extin- 
guish every earth-born passion, as the 
sun would outshine the smallest spark. 

Although we stand on its awful brink, 
such is our leaden bias towards the 
world, that we turn our faces the wrong 
way — look on our old acquaintance — 
Time — now so wasted and reduced, that 
his wings and scythe are the only promi- 
nent parts left. As our vision grows 
more dim, his wings appear larger and 
his scythe keener — his consumption is 
deep, his annihilation at hand. 

Let us turn our eyes from him, to 
Eternity — a happy Eternity — the glo- 
rious home of the children of God, the 
kingdom of immortal souls, that have 
chosen the better part, that makes them 
heirs of endless bliss. 

In Time, we are in embryo; in Eter- 
nity, we receive our real birth, and enter 



NOT FABULOUS. 105 

upon the aurelia of our existence. We 
should see well that we are matured for 
the change. O, my languid fellow-tra- 
veller in the deep vale of years, it is high 
time that our wisdom should be brought 
into full exercise, lest the greatest of 
curses should fall upon us — that of being 
wise too late, the most emphatic defini- 
tion of a fool. We are worn out to the 
world ; it is worn out to us and quits us, 
like rats fleeing from a falling house. 
We should quit it as bees do an ex- 
hausted flower: we can extract no more 
honey from it; its sweets are gone to 
us. Its delusions, its enchantments, its 
airy castles, its glittering prospects, its 
bursting bubbles, its fleeting joys, its de- 
ceptive pleasures: all gone to us, and 
we are left, so far as the world is con- 
cerned, on a lonely, barren, briery heath, 
to grope our weary way through the 
dusk of life, until the last messenger 



106 THE CENTAUR 

shall come, set us free, and conduct us 
to our final home. Let us drop the 
world, and hold communion with the 
skies. 

It is a good thing to know when we 
have all, and laugh at that cheat — 
more — that is ever making war upon our 
hearts. To know this, is as uncommon 
as it is beneficial. Some old men try to 
milk the world after it is dry — glean 
sublunary straws when the harvest of 
life is over — grasping after a second crop 
among the weather-beaten stubble, when 
they should be perfecting an interest in 
that golden harvest, that shall profusely 
crown an eternal year. 

As to the narrow pass that is so much 
feared — the dark subterranean entrance 
to future life, into which our weak ima- 
gination peeps and starts back, like a 
timorous child at a shadow — thanks 
to the blessed Gospel, the lamp of 



NOT FABULOUS. 107 

faith will dispel its gloom and light us 
through. 

I have seen a death-bed, the reverse 
of poor Altamont's, where the king of 
terrors was overmatched by Christian 
faith, resignation and patience. The 
power of religion shone out, in resplen- 
dent glory — nor could any rising suspi- 
cion of hypocrisy dim its lustre. In 
such scenes as these, the human heart 
is no longer invisible to man — a glimpse 
of Heaven flashes on all around. 

We know what can make us fall 
calmly into the sleep of death — what 
can smooth the rough transition, and 
soften our change into a translation, 
which neither interrupts our existence 
or our peace. So, many have died — so, 
all may die. Faith in the Lord Jesus 
Christ, a compliance with the require- 
ments of the Gospel, and an absolute 



108 THE CENTAUR 

resignation to the will of God, will se- 
cure a peaceful close of life. 

We should leave the cares of the 
world before they are forced to leave 
us. There is a noble absence from the 
world while we are yet on it. There is 
a noble intimacy with Heaven, while 
we are yet beneath it. If we fix our 
affections, and lay up a treasure there, 
we shall be welcomed, by superior be- 
ings, and by the Father of our spirits, to 
that happy abode, to go no more out 
forever. 

The worldly wishes sent out by an 
old man, fare worse than Noah's dove, 
they find no rest until they return — and 
always continue to return empty — they 
find no olive-branch to indicate the 
dawn of a brighter day. Our wisdom 
cannot add to our days, but it should 
lessen the burdens of life and terrors of 
death. In youth, to forget we must die, 



NOT FABULOUS. 109 

is folly — in old age, madness — in all, 
presumption. 

As the natural powers of men decay 
and degenerate under the ruthless hand 
of time, their deformity increases, and it 
is well to veil them from the public 
gaze. We should be a little buried to 
the world, before we are interred be- 
neath its clods. It is the Piano-Forte 
of the devil, on which he plays sweet 
music, for the dissipation of human 
thought, and to prevent us from collect- 
ing the scattered rays that beam upon 
us, to a focal point, that our hearts may 
be fired with pure devotion to the living 
God. Piety and happiness are synony- 
mous at all periods of life — in old age 
they are more emphatically so. Nothing 
exposes the weakness of human nature 
more, than to see a man of gray hairs 
playing the fool. Hope, the stay of 
younger years, is no longer his by right. 

K 



110 THE CENTAUR 

For him to indulge in the follies of 
youth, is like bathing for health in the 
dark fountains of Alpheus* and Arethu- 
sa,f instead of the pure waters of Eri- 
dcimus.X supposed, by the ancients, to 
flow from Heaven. Worldly hope is 
the cordial of life — without happiness, 
it makes an imaginary happy young 

* Alpheus, a famous river of Peloponnesus, which 
rises in Arcadia, and, after passing through Elis and 
Achaia, falls into the sea. Its fabulous origin is traced 
to a hunter of the same name, who was changed into 
a fountain by Diana, because he was in love with her. 
— Walker's Clas. Die. 

t Arethusa — a nymph of Elis, daughter of Oceanus, 
and one of the attendants of Diana. By this goddess, 
she was changed into a fountain and Alpheus imme- 
diately mingled his stream with hers, and Diana 
opened a secret passage under the earth and under 
the sea, when these mingled streams disappeared, 
and rose again in Octygia — so say mythologists. — lb. 

t Eridamus — one of the largest rivers in Italy, rising 
in the Alps and falling into the Adriatic sea by seve- 
ral mouths, now called the Po. Virgil calls it king of 
all rivers. In mythology, it is supposed to rise and 
flow from Heaven. — lb. 



NOT FABULOUS. Ill 

man — but as age advances, this wax- 
candle of the soul burns shorter and 
dimmer — expires in the socket, and 
leaves the old candlestick in the dark. 
Not so, if a candle from the great 
Architect of the universe is there. It 
burns, but never wastes — its light will 
continue to increase in volume and bril- 
liancy, and shine brighter and brighter 
unto the perfect day. Let us examine 
well our lamps, and see if they are 
filled with the oil of grace — properly 
trimmed and in order — that they may 
not fail us when we pass through the 
valley of the shadow of death. Let us 
pause on the brink — on the confines of 
eternity where we now stand, and pro- 
vide well for our transit from this to the 
world of spirits. An indulgent Heaven 
joins my pathetic wish, and ardent an- 
gels say, Amen. Our concurrence will 
crown their wishes for our welfare with 



112 THE CENTAUR 

blissful joy, and when we throw off this 
mortal coil, they will sing, 

" His winter past, 

Fair spring at last 
Receives him on her flow'ry shore ; 

Where pleasure's rose 

Immortal blows, 
And sin, and sorrow are no more." 

Sincerely your friend and 

fellow traveller to Eternity. 



NOT FABULOUS. 113 



LETTER V. 

THE DIGNITY OF MAN. 

Many are for degrading their nature, 
that they may lessen its duties, and look 
on themselves as insignificant, that they 
may be profligate with a better grace 
and excuse. They run voluntarily into 
error and in the dark, that they may sin 
without a blush, and frame a lie for an 
apology. Such may not understand the 
dignity of man, his noble origin, the de- 
sign of his creation, the eternity of his 
deathless soul, the magnitude of his 
powers, and his original destiny. A due 
sense of the grandeur of man's nature 
and destination, is his best bulwark 
against the violent assaults of tempta- 
tion. Made after the image of God, 
nearly allied to angels, immortality 

k 2 



114 THE CENTAUR 

stamped upon his soul, the last, the no- 
blest work of creative Wisdom, a legal 
heir to endless bliss, a candidate for a 
crown of glory, and all within his power. 
Why then should man descend from 
the throne of reason, trample in the dust 
his native dignity, and creep, like the 
loathsome worm, through the filth and 
scum created by the follies of this world, 
and transform himself into a Centaur? 
Man, as he came from the finishing hand 
of his Creator, was more than he can 
conceive — and is still a marvellous being, 
darting rays of glory beyond the reach 
of his own sight. It is true, that our 
great progenitor stained the original 
image, and transferred it, blotted with 
the foul spots of sin, to his progeny — 
but our souls should be enraptured with 
joy, when we contemplate, that the same 
almighty hand that stamped immortality 
on man, has opened a fountain, in which, 



NOT FABULOUS. 115 

if he wash, he is cleansed from every 
stain and blot, and restored to his native 
dignity. To contemplate man redeem- 
ed, is the sublimest source of human joy 
— the richest mine of human thought. 
Nothing but gross ignorance or more fa- 
tal Infidelity, can dry up this source, or 
close the avenues to this mine — a mine, 
explored but by few, and thoroughly 
worked by fewer still — a mine, without 
a knowledge of which, man is a stran- 
ger to his noblest powers, and to the 
pure delights, flowing, in an unceasing 
stream, from genuine, vital Christianity, 
filling the soul with the consolations of 
the Holy Ghost, which this world can 
neither give or take away. Man should 
highly reverence his own nature, he will 
then more profoundly adore the Divine. 
We cannot form a true estimate of 
strangers — to themselves, most men are 
strangers. 



116 THE CENTAUR 

He who truly understands and pro- 
perly estimates his native dignity, wor- 
ships and obeys God, and obeying, holds 
sweet converse with Him through the 
communications of His spirit. Moses, 
one of our brethren, conversed with the 
Almighty, face to face — Abraham was 
called His friend, and He who made the 
world, and died to save its meanest ten- 
ant, delights to be called the SON OF 
MAN, and waits anxiously to make all 
joint heirs of the great Jehovah, who 
will come to Him and be saved. These 
thoughts should aggrandize and elevate 
our nature to a standard far above the 
enchantments of time and sense — for 
men are pilgrims and foreigners on earth, 
have their conversation in Heaven, are 
fellow-citizens with the saints — are of 
the household of God. 

But the Infidel may say — (the Chris- 
tian knows better,) "Your high standard 



NOT FABULOUS. 117 

of human nature will engender pride, 
which goes before a fall." This asser- 
tion w r ould prove his utter ignorance of 
himself. The very reverse is always the 
result of a thorough acquaintance with 
ourselves. When we are brought to see 
the ravages made within by sin, look at 
the beauties of the grand original, all 
stained with iniquity, and feel, and 
know, that the grace of God alone re- 
stores us to his favour and our native 
dignity, pride flies the course, humility 
takes its place, and our entire depend- 
ence on the Almighty preserves an 
equilibrium. Pride often springs from 
a conceit in the mind of an individual, 
that he is superior to his fellows. The 
true dignity of man is an inherent right, 
belonging to, and may and should be 
preserved by all men — a dignity that 
does not exalt one above anothor. What 
is too commonly called dignity, is of a 



118 THE CENTAUR 

lunar kind. Men, of themselves opaque, 
borrow beams from circumstances of 
wealth and high stations, which dazzle 
the eyes of those who are ignorant of 
their own nature, whose understandings 
are darkened, who mistake pomp and 
show for happiness, and wit for wisdom. 
Of such men, we have a superabundance, 
with myriads of admirers, attracted by 
the glare of their light, and, like swarms 
of insects, rush into the deceptive blaze 
and die. The load of guilt, resting, with 
ponderous weight, on these lunar gran- 
dees, is often enhanced geometrically, 
by the blood of thousands, led astray by 
their pernicious examples. 

They only have solar, enduring light, 
who live up to the dignity of their na- 
ture — a light that will outlive Time, and 
shine through ETERNiTy. The more 
luminous the light, the more we adore 
the love of God that kindled it on the 



NOT FABULOUS. 119 

altar of pure benevolence and infinite 
mercy — not because man was merito- 
rious, but because of his immortality. 
Want of merit strips the Christian of 
self-righteousness, banishes pride, and 
clothes him in the comely garment of 
humility, and fills his undying soul with 
joys serene and tranquil, and shuts 
out the clouds and storms of worldly 
perturbation and care. This paradox 
to the unregenerate, imparts a holy, hal- 
lowed comfort to Christians, inexpressi- 
bly superior to the raised delights of the 
Man of Pleasure, when in the flood-tide 
of his dangerous, fearful career. And 
yet this glorious subject is compressed 
and folded up in millions on millions of 
minds, like the oak in an acorn, and 
that acorn planted in a rock of adamant. 
O for an angel's pen, dipped in holy 
fire, that I might develope some of the 
thousand shining lights, locked up in 



120 THE CENTAUR 

man unregenerated, that should flash 
conviction on some poor soul. 

Man — what can limit his powers ? 
What thing created more noble than 
himself! Let him circle the globe — 
traverse the skies — gaze at the sun and 
moon — count the stars — unveil the ar- 
cana of nature — and search for some- 
thing more to be admired — more worthy 
of his nature — and he must return to the 
finished work — the last, the sublimest,the 
grandest, the noblest work of creative 
Wisdom — of Almighty power — MAN. 

If he will closely examine and fully 
comprehend his interior, he will behold 
an immense theatre, with a full company 
of actors, anxious and competent to per- 
form any part he may assign them, for 
good or for evil. The renowned "Know 
thyself," was once & precept; it is now 
a command from high Heaven, charging 
us to become familiar with the vast tern- 



NOT FABULOUS. 121 

pie of our souls, designed for the habita- 
tion of the Holy Ghost. 

As in some master-pieces of perspect- 
ive, by the pressure of the eye the pros- 
pect is opened, and increasing beauties 
rush upon the delighted beholder — so in 
this temple, persevering thought and 
faithful self-examination will open new 
discoveries, and develope, more and 
more, our true dignity, and show us 
what God designed and has done for us. 
This will inspire the greatest virtue, the 
parent of our greatest blessings on earth 
— ^virtue and blessings lost to all who 
close this glorious temple — the careless 
— the devotees of pleasure — the ignorant 
— the slothful — in short, to all those 
who believe a lie and reject truth, either 
directly or by implication. 

O, that what has now been written, 
may be used as a key to open this tem- 
ple where it is yet closed— that its right- 

L 



122 THE CENTAUR 

ful owner may enter its surprising halls 
and capacious chambers, and read the 
wonders of Divine love there inscribed. 
Such a key would be next in value to 
the key of Heaven. It would open the 
portals of enduring bliss, unveil the glo- 
ries of redeemed man, and afford a 
glimpse of the more refulgent glories of 
our immaculate Redeemer. 

Let us be deeply impressed with these 
important truths. There is but one God 
— one great tribunal — one trial — one sal- 
vation, and but one wisdom. All else, 
not subservient to these, is folly of dif- 
ferent colors and degrees — -gay, grave, 
wealthy, lettered, domestic, political, civil, 
military, recluse, ostentatious, high, hum- 
ble, noble, ignoble, defeat or triumph — 
all melt away in view of Eternity — that 
awful, inspiring, incomprehensible word, 
that has often awakened ideas that slept 



NOT FABULOUS. 123 

before, a word that rushes on the mind 
of man like an avalanche. 

Finally, in view of the dignity of man, 
and the love of God bestowed upon him, 
how awed, how enraptured, with what 
prostration of heart, elevation of joy, and 
gratitude of soul, should we look up from 
this remote region, this lowest vale of 
earth, this land of darkness and the 
shadow of death, this valley of dry bones, 
this charnel house, through the incum- 
bent clouds of misery and sin, and be- 
hold the MAN in Heaven ! in the high- 
est Heaven ! in union with the most 
High ! in union with our most adored 
and eternal KING ! throned in authori- 
ty, and to us, so superior in power, as to 
make ceaseless intercession for a world 
of rebels, rolling in iniquity, the unwea- 
ried advocate of fallen man. How amaz- 
ing the condescension of DEITY ! how 
wonderful the sublimation of redeemed 



124 THE CENTAUR 

MAN ! O blessed revelation ! that opens 
such wonders — dreadful revelation ! if it 
opens them in vain ! A blessing is freely 
tendered, nay, urged upon all; that 
blessing, the very shadow of which made 
the body of the patriarchal and Jewish 
religion ; that blessing, that w r as an- 
nounced by enraptured angels to the 
shepherds ; that blessing, which is more 
than an equivalent for Paradise lost; 
that blessing, which, if declined, rejected, 
and set at naught, will recoil upon its 
despisers, and become to them more 
terrible than the burning lava from a 
volcano. Let all be wise in time, that 
they may be happy in Eternity. 

THE CENTAURS RESTORATION TO 
HUMANITY. 

If I have succeeded in convincing 
these animals, that they have a pearl of 
great price within them, that they have 



NOT FABULOUS. 125 

an immortal soul that will live through 
the rolling ages of eternity, a soul that 
must dwell in the realms of endless bliss, 
or writhe in endless despair — that they 
have its weal and wo in their own hands 
— that happiness and misery are placed 
before them — that they have the full 
power of choosing for themselves — in 
short, if I have convinced them of their 
true origin, of their native dignity, and 
of their final destiny — resulting from 
virtuous conduct on the one hand, and 
from indulgence in vice on the other, — 
happiness, the blissful fruits of the one, 
and misery, the bitter pills of the other 
— I may indulge a hope, that the man 
will again control the brute, by resuming 
that power delegated to Adam — domi- 
nion over the fish, fowls, cattle, earth, 
and every creeping thing on the earth. 
Then the dark agents that entice men 
from allegiance to their God and them- 

l2 



126 THE CENTAUR 

selves will vanish, and a flood of light 
will rush upon their restored and de- 
lighted vision, reason will dawn, a moral 
day will break upon them, they will 
again be Men. One will burn his Bo- 
linghroke, another his Volneys Ruins, 
another will pay his debts, another take 
a pew in church, one curses his delay, 
vows to pray directly, falls on his knees, 
like Ccesars horse, rises with a sigh, de- 
termines to be master of himself before 
to-morrow. Another pays over all his 
gains by gambling to the foundling 
hospital; another relieves the piercing 
poverty of a widow and orphans, made 
such by his own ruthless, blood-stained 
hands upon the field of false honor; and 
many more resolve to abandon vice, 
burst the bands that have so long held 
them in bondage, throw off the gilded 
trappings of Pleasure, and again stand 
erect on two feet, in all the majestic 



NOT FABULOUS. 127 

dignity of MAN. Others approve, and 
faintly wish a restoration to humanity, 
but are careless and indolent. They 
would like to be good, but have not 
moral courage enough to repudiate the 
quadruped. Although quite affected at 
heart, they are awed by fashion, are vain 
to be called fine Men, are ashamed to 
recognise their native dignity, and thus 
remain fools that they may w r alk on all 
fours. These moral fops are little men 
in Centaur's skins — coward virtue in 
masquerade. Others still look on the 
noble quadruped as superior to the Man. 
Those who are truly desirous and man- 
fully determined to escape for their lives, 
soon exhibit a mighty change — gradual 
but plainly visible. One sheds a mane, 
another drops a tail, and, alas! for gin 
shops, others drop their horns. Some 
apply the lunar caustic of the publican 
to remove the hair more rapidly — some 



128 THE CENTAUR 

are astonished to see slender fingers 
protruding through hoofs, mollified to 
flesh by their penitential tears — all call 
for dresses suited to the human shape, 
pleasures suited to the human mind, for 
rational improvement and employments, 
for Bibles, prayer books, debt books, 
faithful friends, and proper objects of 
charity and benevolence. 

Others are much affected by the 
changes around them, and, like dancing 
dogs, raise themselves erect for a time, 
but soon tire, then hop on three legs, 
and finally plant themselves on all fours, 
become Centaurs for life, and retire to 
Bolingbroke castle, deeming it impreg- 
nable because encircled by Acheron* 
and its proud battlements threatening 

# Acheron — a river of Thesprotia in Epirus. Ho- 
mer calls it one of the rivers of Hell, and the fable 
has been adopted by all succeeding poets. The word 
Acheron, is often translated Hell.— Walk. Clas. Die. 



NOT FABULOUS. 129 

Heaven. There Chiron* bends his 
bow, there the Centaurs increase in 
number and boldness, wearing frontlets 
of brass on their foreheads, and the 
yJEstriplez of Horace on their breasts, 
led on by men of letters, whose quills 
are more fatal than those of the porcu- 
pine, waging a war upon their former 
colleagues, now erect, clothed in their 
right minds, and ready to do battle for 
their rightful Lord and Master. 

This castle was built out of the va- 

* Chiron — a Centaur, half man and half horse, son 
of Philyra and Saturn — was famous for his knowledge 
of music, medicine, and shooting. He taught man- 
kind the use of plants and medicinal herbs — he in- 
structed, in all the polite arts, the greatest heroes of 
his age, such as Achilles, Esculapius, Hercules, &c. 
He was wounded in the knee by a poisoned arrow, 
by Hercules, in his pursuit of the Centaurs. Hercules 
flew to his assistance, but as the wound was incurable, 
and caused excruciating pain, Chiron begged Jupiter 
to deprive him of immortality, and he was placed, by 
this god of mythology, among the constellations, under 
the name of Sagittarius. — Walk. Clas. Die. 



130 THE CENTAUR 

rious rains of many demolished forts of 
Infidelity, pompously put together, faced 
over with a material more shining: than 
solid, and cemented with untempered 
mortar. But it must fall as did ancient 
Babylon. Christianity will be the Cy- 
rus, to turn the course of its Euphrates 
from its present channel, and will march 
its forces within the walls, demolish all 
that is profane — but, uulike the Orien- 
tal conqueror, will endeavour to save, 
not destroy the inhabitants. 

Arrayed in decent apparel, not em- 
broidered with the gewgaws of fashion, 
the new converts call a council, and re- 
solve, nobly resolve to enlist under the 
blood-stained banner of the Cross, and 
come up to the help of the Lord against 
the mighty. Victory is their motto, and 
well may they expect to conquer others 
who have first conquered themselves. 
They are now restored to humanity, they 



NOT FABULOUS. 131 

are redeemed and bask in the clear sun- 
shine of God's love — they can go on their 
way rejoicing with joy inexpressible. 

But oh! how horrible the last hours 
of those who remain Centaurs to the 
end. As dissolution approaches, the sky 
darkens; thunders roll; the ground trem- 
bles under them; a sulphureous smoke 
suffocates them. Ravens croak, owls 
scream, friends shriek, demons laugh; 
Hell opens, and they sink to rise no 
more. They groan, they are foundered; 
the final blow is struck, they disappear, 
and leave nothing as a legacy to poster- 
ity, but the deep foot-prints of their 
dark, black, cloven feet, in the dirty path 
of life which they have trod. As they 
enter their new abode, they are abashed 
at a more hideous change from Centaurs. 
Seeking where to hide, a formidable 
Phantom appears, with a coronet drop- 
ping from his head, and a huge volume 



132 THE CENTAUR 

in his hand, and, by the magic of the first 
philosophy, a sudden Pandemonium rises, 
like a pestilential exhalation, for the wel- 
come and well adapted situation of them 
all. They are no longer clad in fine 
linen; no longer fare sumptuously every 
day; no longer color their faces to hide 
pimples or wrinkles; all are blotted into 
the deepest black, as if, like Achilles* 
they had been dipped in the river Styx,\ 
and like him, are wounded in the heel. 

* Achilles, the son of Peleus and Thetis, was the 
bravest of all the Greeks in the Trojan war. During 
his infancy, Thetis plunged him in the river Styx, and 
made every part of his body invulnerable, except the 
heel, by which she held him. He slew Hector, the 
bulwark of Troy, tied the corpse by the heels to his 
chariot, and dragged it three times round the walls of 
that city. He then permitted old Priam to carry away 
the body. In the tenth year of the war, Achilles was 
charmed with Polyxena, and as he solicited her hand 
in the temple of Minerva, Paris aimed an arrow al his 
vulnerable heel, of which wound he died. — Walker's 
Clas. Die. 

# Styx — a small river of Nonaius, in Arcadia, whose 



NOT FABULOUS. 133 



CONCLUSION. 

We have now the picture of man be- 
fore us, taken from several different po- 
sitions. We have seen this marvellous 
being metamorphosed from his original 
form into an Infidel — a Man of Pleasure 
— a Centaur, and transformed back, by 
grace, to his native dignity. We have 
contemplated the present and future 
condition of the good and bad man. 
The one, guided by faith and virtue, 
fulfils the design of his creation, and 
prepares for the future — the other, being 
governed by appetite and sense, caters 

waters were so cold and venomous, that they proved 
fatal to all who drank of them. They consumed iron 
and broke all vessels put in them. The wonderful 
properties of these waters suggested the idea, that it 
was a river of Hell, especially, as it disappeared in 
the earth a little below its fountain head. — lb. 

M 



134 THE CENTAUR 

only for the 'present, and, with the capa- 
city of being wise, becomes the more a 
fool. His present is so dear that his 
future runs to ruin. As ignorance of 
ourselves teems with Infidelity, so a 
knowledge of our own hearts is the fast 
friend of faith. The natural growth of 
an Infidel is a beast — by God uncreated, 
by Adam unnamed. That defect, Adam's 
meanest son has supplied, by writing 
CENTAUR in the horrid gap which 
the bold Infidel has made, by the des- 
perate erasure of his Christian name. 
If this cognomen is thought opprobrious, 
let not the brute any longer run away 
with the man, lest something more 
dreadful run away with the brute, and a 
w r orse name and fate be the consequence. 
As the face of the globe was deform- 
ed by the flood, so is the original place 
of human nature deranged by the deluge 
of iniquity, now sweeping over our wide- 



NOT FABULOUS. 135 

spread and increasing country. By 
large and frequent immigrations of sen- 
sualities, and other deserters from hu- 
manity, mankind is thinned, and the 
brute creation overstocked. Of all brutes, 
he is the greatest, who is a volunteer in 
brutality — the self-made brute, a brute, 
not by the decree, but by the abuse of 
nature — the strange brute, with the ves- 
ture, voice, and face of a man — the brute 
mysterious, irrationally rational, and de- 
plorably immortal. 

Although this picture of Centaurs 
may not be drawn by a master-hand, the 
likeness will be recognised by all, but 
those it best represents. If they would 
spoil my work, they must mend their 
lives and discipline their own hearts to 
be revenged on me. If all become good 
men, what I have written may then be 
treated as fabulous. Until then, their 
censures recoil on themselves, and by 



136 THE CENTAUR 

falsely condemning, make the likeness 
more just. 

If Centaur sounds too grating on the 
ear, change it to Slave, and instead of 
making free with yowx form, I will rattle 
yowx chains, your galling infamous chains, 
forged in Pandemonium and worn upon 
earth. Until man knows himself, and 
has his hard heart and stubborn will sub- 
dued by grace, he endures the most 
cruel bondage — madly prefers the heavy 
shackles of his lusts and the scourges of 
conscience, to the liberty of the sons of 
God. He grows proud under his task- 
masters, triumphs in infamy, and seems 
to imagine, that in flights of folly and 
riot unrestrained, he may become the 
hero of the ring, and receive the ful- 
some plaudits of kindred slaves. If he 
can perform great feats in the gymnasium 
of sensuality, he imagines himself a great 
man, forgetting, that he only is great, 



NOT FABULOUS. 137 

who preserves, untarnished, his native 
dignity — makes the whole creation and 
its Creator the circumference, and his 
own true interest, the centre of his 
thoughts. He can weigh, in perpetual 
and equal balances, right and wrong, 
body and soul, time and eternity — and 
so weighing, he is not over anxious for 
less than the greatest good his nature 
admits, and God has promised to be- 
stow. In using our best efforts to obtain 
the supreme good, we manifest the true 
greatness of man. Without this, king, 
hero, philosopher, Ccesar* Bolingbroke, 

# CiESAR 7 Caius Julius, the first Roman emperor, 
the son of Lucius Csesar and Amelia, daughter of 
Cotta, was born at Rome one hundred years B. C. and 
lost his father at the age of sixteen years. Being con- 
nected by marriage with the faction of Marius, his 
destruction was resolved on by Sylla. By his friends, 
he was persuaded to alter his mind, but told them, 
they would one day repent that his life was spared. 
Caesar became very popular with the people — filled 
the offices of chief pontiff and praetor — obtained the 

m2 



138 THE CENTAUR 

Newton* a fiddler, a tumbler, a beggar, 
may all be marshalled into one promis- 
cuous squad, when they shall stand be- 

government of Spain — formed the first triumvirate 
with Pompey and Crassus, and 59 B. C. became con- 
sul of Rome. When his consulship expired, he re- 
ceived the command of Gaul, reduced the people to 
subjection — defeated the German tribes — twice in- 
vaded Britain — put Pompey to flight — was declared 
dictator, then consul a second time — drove the Egyp- 
tians — subdued Phamaces, king of Pontus — defeated 
Scipio and Cato in Africa — subjugated Spain — and was 
the triumphant conqueror of all who did not submit 
to his rule, and was crowned emperor of Rome. A 
conspiracy w^as finally formed against him by Brutus, 
Cassius, and others, and, on the 15th day of March, 
44 B. C. he fell in the senate chamber, pierced with 
twenty-three wounds. He was an eloquent orator, a 
finished writer, and a man of science. We are indebt- 
ed to him for the reformation of the calendar. His 
commentaries are the only production from his pen 
now extant. — Dav. Biog. Die. 

# Newton, Sir Isaac, was born at Colsterworth, in 
Lincolnshire, England, on the 25th December, 1642. 
He was a profound philosopher, an acute mathema- 
tician, and became familiar with mechanism and 
drawing. In 1667, he obtained a fellowship ; in 1669 
was appointed professor of mathematics in Cambridge 



NOT FABULOUS. 



139 



fore the burning throne of the great Je- 
hovah. Each of them had his admirers, 
his flashes of earthly glory: his kindred 
spirits may have flattered him, but when 
death came, he made no distinction, and 
when God judges, earthly renown weighs 
nothing in the scale of eternal justice. 
I know some have turned Infidels to 
prove their freedom and greatness : hang- 
ing themselves would be as consistent 
and less pernicious to the public mind. 
He is most free, who obeys the gospel; 
he is most wise, who best knows him- 
self; he is most happy, who fears God 

college, and in 1671, became a member of the Royal 
Society. It was during his abode at Cambridge, that 
he made his three great discoveries — fluxions — the 
nature of light and colors — and the laws of gravita- 
tion. To the latter of these, his attention was first 
turned, by seeing an apple fall from a tree, which 
unfolded to the world the theory of the universe, 
which was published in 1687. After filling many im- 
portant stations, with honor to himself and country, 
he died, on the 20th of March, 1727.— lb. 



140 THE CENTAUR 

and keeps his commandments. The 
light of his countenance is the sun of the 
human soul, and its genial rays impart 
true felicity. It is true, the world has 
much of moonshine in it, producing no 
vivifying heat, no solid satisfaction. To 
love and labor for our great Creator, is 
the great lesson and true pleasure of 
human life. 

To that tremendous power, which 
alone is truly great and good, in whose 
favor is all light, life, hope, peace, joy, and 
salvation — be adoration and praise, that 
he has enabled us to gain a triumphant 
victory over the Rebel, Fool, Slave, and 
Centaur of our souls. And may our 
hearts swell with lively gratitude to- 
wards the God of all grace, and con- 
stantly pant for the rivers of enduring 
and substantial Pleasure at his right 
hand: and may we carefully avoid the 
rocks on which the Infidel and Man of 



NOT FABULOUS. 141 

Pleasure — the Centaur are wrecked 
by thousands, and, with unshaken faith 
and unyielding virtue be more and more 
confirmed, until we shall be called to 
our final home, our eternal rest. 

With an anxious, feeling, bleeding 
heart, I look on Centaurs. O that 
they would obey the dictates of reason, 
of common sense. I feel the strong 
workings of humanity in my soul, as I 
am about to leave them, and say Fare- 
well — until we meet before the dread 
tribunal of the great Jehovah. I leave 
with them this small legacy, urging, in 
the spirit of love and kindness, their re- 
formation — warning them to flee from 
the wrath to come, by again assuming 
their native dignity, and becoming MEN 
in the fullest sense of the term. 

Reason, common sense, past expe- 
rience, passing events, Heaven, death, 
their immortal souls, the final judgment 



142 THE CENTAUR 

— all combine to enforce upon them the 
necessity, the interest, the advantage, 
the present happiness and future felicity, 
arising from a preparation to meet their 
God, on that awful day, when they shall 
see, with overwhelming amazement, 

Terror and glory join'd in their extremes ! 
Our God in grandeur, and a world on fire. 

When that terrible day of the Lord 
shall come, Christians will look, with 
calm serenity, on the wreck of nature 
and the crush of worlds, and hail the 
King of Glory with songs of triumph, as 
they meet Him in mid Heaven. None 
but the truly pious can contemplate that 
awful day, and sing with the poet, to 
their glorious and glorified Redeemer, 

" When the tribes of wickedness are strown 
Like forest leaves in th' autumn of thine ire ; 
Faithful and true ! thou still will save thine own ! 
The saints shall dwell within th' unharming fire 
Each white robe spotless ! blooming every palm, 
Ev'n safe as we, by this still fountain's side, 



NOT FABULOUS. 143 

So shall thy church, thy bright and mystic bride 
Sit on the stormy gulph, a halcyon bird of calm : 
Yes, ? mid yon angry and destroying signs, 
O'er us, the rainbow of thy mercy shines ) 
We hail, we bless the cov'nant of its beam, 
Almighty to avenge — almight'st to redeem." 

Reader, do you, can you, dare you 
doubt the existence of a great first Cause, 
an Almighty Creator, a Being, who rules 
with unerring wisdom, in the Kingdoms 
Nature, Providence, and Grace, merely 
because you cannot comprehend God 1 

11 How can the less the greater comprehend ? 

Or finite reason reach infinity ? 

For what could fathom God, were more than He. 

Is there no God % The stars in myriads spread 

In rich profusion, the blasphemy deny. 

Man, your own features in the mirror read, 

Keflect the image of Divinity. 

Is there no God ? The stream that silver flows, 

The air you breathe, the ground you tread, the trees, 

The flow'rs, the grass, the sands, each wind that blows, 

All speak of God ! throughout, one voice agrees, 

And eloquent his dread existence shows ! 

Blind to thyself, ah, see Him, fool, in these. ;? 



144 THE CENTAUR NOT FABULOUS. 

But, if there is a God, you say he is 
love, and will not punish according to 
our creed of faith. 

" Can love allure, or can terror awe ? 

He weeps ! the falling drop puts out the sun ! 

He sighs! the sigh earth's deep foundation shakes! 

If in his love so terrible ! what then 

His wrath inflam'd ! His tenderness on fire V 7 

Reader, there is a God — prepare to 
meet Him before it shall be too late, and 
you will be compelled to say, in all the 
anguish of keen remorse — the harvest 

IS PAST, THE SUMMER IS ENDED, AND MY 
SOUL IS NOT SAVED. 

Sincerely your friend, 
Adieu. 



THE END. 



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